When people first saw the trailers for the 2011 horror film, The Cabin in the Woods, it’s safe to say they were less than impressed with what they saw as it looked like every generic slasher horror film ever made. While that specific type of movie still has its fans as the slasher genre still makes movies with limited changes in the modern era and mostly survives off of it, it’s a type of film that is easily outgrown and people were clearly not impressed with the bare minimum shown off in this trailer. However, when word of mouth started to spread that the trailer was a lie and the movie actually housed some inventive new material that poked fun of these cliches, people were more willing to check it out and were undoubtedly surprised with what they saw. American college students Dana (played by Kristen Connolly), Curt (played by Chris Hemsworth), Jules (played by Anna Hutchison), Marty (played by Fran Kranz) and Holden (played by Jesse Williams) decide to spend their weekend at Curt’s cousin’s cabin in the forest. Upon arriving, they come across some creepy artifacts in the basement that seem to tie into a haunted past this cabin suffered, and unknowingly summon a zombified family to come and pick them off one by one. What isn’t aware to them is that this entire situation is being orchestrated by an underground laboratory run by an initiative that seems hellbent on sacrificing teenagers in typical horror movie situations around the world. As they start to be picked off and with this outside interference causing problems at every turn, those left standing will have to survive the night and maybe uncover the truth behind this organisation and why it is so crucial that they don’t survive this weekend visit. Released to a positive reception from critics, The Cabin in the Woods proved to be more than what it appeared to be from its advertising and was applauded at the time for its premise and tweaking of familiar slasher tropes. However, maybe the feeling of expected disappointment made people see this movie as better than what it actually turned out to be.

The idea of mocking and satirizing the horror genre was nothing new, as even films several decades earlier had already done so previously to the point where it became more of trend to mock the cliches than even attempt to put them in, but what matters is how they try to satirize the cliches and the movie does come with an incredibly sound and fun idea. The concept that every ‘’horror film-esque’’ incident is actually a constructed event done by a corporation who map out and even bet on the order in which things can play out and go down, all in the attempt to appease a certain faceless higher power, is one that feels like a great creative idea that could breath new life into an old formula and even pretty funny at the same time. It mirrors an ideology that the audience would be face with; getting pleasure out of watching something that in many respects, is pretty disturbing to take pleasure out of, but they do regardless for the thrill and the adrenaline that it provides. The manner in which it immediately dashes the notion that this is a basic slasher film and since it doesn’t try to hide this ‘’behind the scenes’’ tampering for a twist, it gives the movie its own unique identity and instead poses different questions that wouldn’t be asked if it was only from the teens perspective (its much more interesting wondering why this organisation is doing what they’re doing as opposed to finding out about them last minute). The directing for this movie was handled by first time director, Drew Goddard, who had plenty of writing credits for movies like Cloverfield, World War Z, and The Martian, and even got his start writing for popular Joss Whedon shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (with Whedon helping to produce this film). For a first-time job, Goddard does do a decent job handling this concept and pacing it out in a favorable manner to the point where its vague enough to not spoiler the obvious, but it isn’t too illusive to the point where it starts to become annoying. However, cracks start to show in how the movie doesn’t quite go far enough in its ideas or even its comedy to where it feels properly utilized, and the movie ironically feels exploitative in moments despite the film actively trying to mock horror films for being like that.

One of the areas where it fails the strongest in terms of how it connects to its satire is how it handles its characters. The idea for them is, like everything else, a really fun idea, where they start off as regular people who don’t feel like dumb movie characters, but are then poisoned with an invisible gas to start acting like these generic tropes and start making dumb stupid decisions against their will. This could work and make for some fun upfront commentary on horror films in general,  but the characters aren’t distinct enough to make this change feel noticeable. Not only do none of these characters exhibit any strong character traits, but what they are turned into doesn’t feel that far off from their original portrayals. Chris Hemsworth’s Curt is supposedly not a typical jock archetype and is apparently turned more into one by the films end, but outside of a single scene where he picks up a book, nothing about him seems very anti-jock like outside of the fact that he isn’t an outright bad guy. His girlfriend, Jules, appears to be like any typical teen girl with a boyfriend in a movie like this, but getting extra sexualised is apparently a huge change in character when she was just kind of flirty to begin with, and Holden goes from a bland nothing character who only exist to be a love interest, to a bland nothing character who only exists to be a love interest like in a horror film. It ironically doesn’t go extreme enough in its portrayals to make these shifts feel impactful, and by playing it straight and not in a humorous manner, it just comes across as an underdeveloped concept doing the bare minimum to meet this premise’s quota. Kristen Connolly actually does a good job as the main character and would make for an engaging lead in a film like this, but by ironically giving her less time and even less to work with due to other things needing to be focused on, she doesn’t really get much time to shine.

The movie’s true meat really seems to be within the underground facility where these people are trying to lead unaware victims into specific directions in order to get them killed (much like an even more messed-up version of The Truman Show) and it does get a lot more fun when they actually showcase some of the creatures that inhabit this location. The effects for this movie were done by AFX studios (run by David Leroy Anderson and his wife, Nightmare of Elm Street star, Heather Langenkamp) and they have been attached to projects like Men in Black, American Horror Story and other material that rely on creepy prosthetics, make-up, or creature designs. On that level, the effects for the film are pretty strong (even if they feel a little video gamey in nature and design) and a lot of the creature designs in this complex are pretty cool-looking and inventive, but most of them aren’t seen for most of the movie, instead focusing on these bland looking zombified people who aren’t really threatening, memorable or distinct in any way, it’s a real letdown especially when they show-off what most of them look like in the final act of this film. For a movie that feels like it’s going one direction, the writing really ruins a lot of this film with how unlikeable a majority of the characters in this complex are, so their need to complete this sacrifice of teens for the greater good is never given a standing point especially because of how one-note misogynistic and awful these two main people they focus on are. It takes what at least could be a difficult dilemma but is instead stuck within this pretty awful mindset which results in a conclusion that makes everything else feel worthless and pointless, its not a very good ending.

The Cabin in the Woods wasn’t what people expected it to be, which was a shallow lame and generic slasher film, but because of that, they may have not seen how this movie could’ve been so much better than what we ended up getting. As a whole, the movie honestly is perfectly serviceable and does its job fine enough with its concept, and has good effects, solid acting and enough of an idea of how to be satirical to make it work as a horror comedy. But the humor isn’t good enough to be unique, the horror is non-existent so there’s no element there to focus on, and the satire has a great starting point, but never blossoms to the point where it stands above what it pretends to be mocking. There have been plenty of horror films (satirical or otherwise) that have taken greater steps than this film, while also including memorable characters, inventive killers and kills, and meaningful messages hidden under a ‘’killer’’ subtext, and this story isn’t strong enough to claim that it deserves to be superior to them.

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