Cabin In The Woods Review....
The Cabin In The Woods (2012)
Okay, so I've got to be pretty careful because...
Click to view(video link)
Yeah, okay so Joss Whedon threatening to make a personal appearance at my house isn't exactly the worst threat I've ever heard. Even if it is to make fun of me and berate me for revealing plot spoilers. Still, I think the message is pretty clear and given in a very respectful and reasonable way, so as a fan of Buffy and Firefly, I probably ought to follow it as best I can.
Thankfully my reviews are generally spoiler free anyway. Probably makes my reviews 25% less interesting. (The other 25% is lack of time I spend on the reviews.... and the final 50% is my lack of writing talent.) Still, I know I appreciate getting a good picture of what a film has in store for me without the plot being spoilt and that's what I try to offer. Now, I knew before even entering the cinema that I'd most likely be including words along the lines of "the plot of this film makes it hard to avoid spoilers" (simply by virtue of seeing the Joss Whedon message above), but I didn't realise how quickly I'd reach points which I probably shouldn't reveal. Seriously, the opening credits of this film features elements not in the trailer that give huge hints as to what this film is really about.
So what can I reveal? Let's set that out clearly before I go on:
1) The plot to the extent revealed by the trailer. (Seriously, don't watch the trailer. I'm going to limit how much I reveal even from that.)
2) The actors involved and the standard of their performance.
3) Some general gist of the type of film this is i.e. pacing, levels of action and dialogue, reactions from the audience
4) Some tiny insignificant hints tied in with general squeeing. (Seriously, no spoilers. I promise.)
5) A score, like in all my reviews.
Okay so...
1) Well naturally there's a cabin and some woods. There's a group of friends travelling to said cabin in said woods. Then randomly (and until seeing the film I wasn't sure how exactly this wasn't the spoiler) there's sci-fi elements. When I saw the trailer I made the comparison with Resident Evil (as in the game) whereby it starts off looking like a haunted house scenario and then turns out to be the result of a scientific research facility underneath the house. As someone who's been a science fiction fan long before being a horror fan, this really appeals to me.
2) YAY! Even more stuff that you can find out without ever entering the cinema!
The most obvious name on the promotional material was Chris Hemsworth who is, of course, the guy who played "Thor" (and the guy who gave possibly the best performance in the Star Trek reboot, playing James Kirk's dad). He's pretty great in this too. Seriously, this guy used to be on "Home and Away"?
Okay I was going for images that show his range of emotion and ended up just getting two pics of him with his mouth slightly open and a furrowed brow, but seriously, he's a really good actor.
I was pretty sure I must have seen Fran Kranz before in all sorts of stuff, but it turns out that asides from possibly a very brief appearance in the movie "Orange County" (as the guy whose transcript gets mixed up with that of the protagonist and is all like "Dude I got into Stanford!" - awesome comedy movie), the only thing I really know him from is Joss Whedon's own "Dollhouse". He plays the guy in charge of the technical programming side. One thing I probably can reasonably reveal, since I think it's clear from the trailer and in any case it's obvious from the very start of the film, is that this is a character who smokes a lot of pot.
Left: Fran Kranz in Dollhouse Right: Franz Kranz in Orange County
Okay, so I don't want to completely picspam you. The other college kids going to the cabin in the woods weren't in anything I was previously familiar with at all really, so I'm not giving them images each time. So obviously Chris Hemsworth and Fran Kranz are the only two survivors? *wink wink nudge nudge*
Anyway, the remaining college kids are played by:
- Anna Hutchison. A New Zealand actress whose most interesting prior credit was a version of The Power Rangers called "Jungle Fury" where she played the yellow power ranger.
- Kristen Connolly. She had a small part in Revolutionary Road as "Mrs. Brace" (who appears to be in one of many couples who simply hears gossip about the central protagonists and their shocking decision that perhaps they'll move to France and make the woman in the marriage the breadwinner for the family *gasp*). I don't know that this character even had any lines, but it at least means she was a named character in a Sam Mendes movie. She seems to be more well-known for featuring prominently in a web-series called ichannel as the character "igirl" (most characters appear to be unnamed in this kind of way) and her online presence would probably be taken rather more seriously by Whedon than by the studios. So that's cool.
- Jesse Williams. His most well known role (I guess) is Dr. Jackson Avery from Grey's Anatomy (yeah, I've never watched that show). A rather more interesting credit was "Dirty Dancing 3" which was especially interesting when I realised it's actually an awesome parody video. Check it out! (Embedding disabled unfortunately, otherwise I'd totally be displaying it here.)
Anyway, yeah they are all great in "Cabin In the Woods". The acting is great, but yeah I'd probably say the two more prominent actors I dealt with first give the best performances out of those five.
Two other major actors end up featuring prominently in the film as a bit of a kind of comedy duo. They play off of each other really well. They are Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford.
Richard Jenkins has been in a variety of Coen brothers movies:
Left: Richard Jenkins in Intolerable Cruelty Right: Richard Jenkins in Burn After Reading.
Bradley Whitford is mainly known for his role in The West Wing, but it turns out he was also one of the better elements in Robocop 3 (oh yeah!):
Left: Bradley Whitford in The West Wing (Pah!) Right: Bradley Whitford in Robocop 3 (Booyah!)
Also some other figures from the Whedonverse:
Fred (Amy Acker) and Andrew (Tom Lenk)!
3) "Cabin In the Woods" is relatively short (an hour and 35 minutes) and the whole thing is cram packed full of action. There are very few points in the film where someone is not speaking and any of those gaps are normally because you are supposed to be scared, uncomfortable or because there's a lot of action going on. The moment you stop paying attention is the point where you are guaranteed to notice important lines passing you by. Now I'm not saying this is some kind of Aaron Sorkin script where everyone talks quickly and verbosely in a way that is supposed to impress you. I just mean that this differed greatly from the Friday the 13th movies I've been watching because in spite of the similar scenario this is an intelligent script with a some real of depth on offer.
4) Top Tips when watching "Cabin In The Woods":
1. Stay alert (particularly in the more sci-fi-ey bits). It's easy for an important line to pass you by and there are plenty of background details to look at. (This isn't a 3D movie so feel free to let your eyes wander. This is a movie that'll probably work well on multiple watches.)
2. Have your horror tropes in mind. Somehow, don't worry about how, this is going to reference a LOT of horror tropes. Some of them seemingly having nothing to do with the Cabin In The Woods scenario. Think about what horror movies you know and be on the look out for aspects of all of them.
3. Don't be afraid to laugh! This is definitely a horror-comedy, but I'm not sure my audience was clear on this. It's possible to take it all very seriously and feel ultra-sorry for the college kids in the cabin (and I was certainly able to sympathise a great deal with these characters), but there are clear ways in which the film is poking fun and you are better off loosening up early. (I wonder whether a lot of people in the audience were familiar with any Whedonverse shows, since this definitely had a similar sort of feeling to it.)
4. Make guesses about what happens next. Yeah, I'm running out of tips, but yeah this is a movie playing with the tropes and sometimes it'll follow things in a pretty typical fashion, other times it'll mix things up a bit. Some things you'll find yourself considering are what could have happened differently. Yeah, intriguing eh?
5. Have Fun! This is a great film, I loved it and it's by far the best film I've seen this year (never mind released this year).
5. Last year I really enjoyed "Tucker And Dale Vs Evil". This looks on the face of it to be a similar sort of premise. Certainly both of them are horror comedies that play on horror tropes. However, this film is by far the better of the two. I think "Tucker and Dale Vs Evil" is your more typical comedy, but I'd say that while "Tucker And Dale Vs Evil" was a comedy with horror elements, this was more of a proper horror comedy with regular doses of both. So yeah, the big non-spoiler is that if you like a good horror comedy you should leave the cinema feeling really satisfied with this film.
A+