Cabin
in the Woods, The (2012) (1st viewing) d. Goddard, Drew
I know, I know, every
Cabin review
starts off with “can’t say too much for fear of spoiling the surprises” and I
will honor that agreement.
What I can
say is that as an entertaining deconstruction of horror films, you’d be hard
pressed to find a more compelling example of “intellectual popcorn.”
Director Goddard co-wrote the clever script
with producer Joss Whedon as a response to the failure of American studios to
yield anything but torture porn and torturous remakes (appropriating the intellectual
properties of superior foreign efforts or capitalizing on name recognition from
the 70s/80s genre pool) and the duo’s witty dialogue is the sharpest tool in
their box.
Which is not to dismiss the
pic’s florid production design or its capable cast of victims and antagonists
or the plentiful splatter, all of which suit the turn admirably.
But I cannot deny leaving the cinema feeling
slightly unfulfilled and it may just be a matter of personal taste; while I
certainly enjoyed the tweaking of genre conventions, especially by those
clearly in the know, at the end of the day I wished for genuine terror, horror
or revulsion.
Instead, Goddard and
Whedon play at and around it, point up the ridiculousness of established
tropes, but never deliver an game-changing twist of the knife themselves.
It’s all good and fine to say there’s
something wrong with the state of affairs, but this is not news to the proud
and faithful genre fan.
What we want is
to be shown the way to something new, something better… a desire that is left
unquenched.
Not to say I wasn’t
entertained, but like many a tasty Chinese meal, I was eyeballing the menu
after the fortune cookies had come and gone, a place in my stomach still left
wanting.
