Earlier this year horror movie fans were given a gift in the form of “The Cabin in the Woods,” the horror movie meta jamboree from the minds of Joss Whedon (director of “The Avengers”) and Drew Goddard (writer of “Cloverfield”).
The film did go on to make a fair chunk of change but hopefully with it’s Blu Ray release this Tuesday the film will go on to become the Halloween staple it deserves to be.
The Halloween season for horror movie fans is like Christmas, their birthday and the lower Oakland roller derby finals all rolled into one.
It’s when cable plays a plethora of spook fests and the film studios shove out whatever new ventures they have for a rabid fan-base.
Sadly the last decade has not been kind for the genre.
With film budgets growing, the willingness to take a risk on a new property shrinks and as such we’ve had a decade of almost nothing but sequels or remakes.
Sure there’s been stand outs like “Trick ‘R’ Treat,” “REC” and “28 Days Later,” but for every diamond you get four “Paranormal Activity” type, five “Resident Evil” types and seven of the “Saw” theme.
Add fraudulent remakes and it becomes apparent why “Cabin” acts as a cinematic breath of fresh air.
While the film is technically horror, it’s more a comedy than anything else, actually one of the funniest this year.
It takes the self-referential style of “Scream,” but goes further than even the bravest of filmmakers.
What makes the film so brilliant though is it’s like an ogre — it has layers.
If one wants to see a flick where a bunch of dumb 20-somethings get slaughtered out in the woods by all sorts of wrong, that’s all there, but what also awaits is a hilarious deconstruction of the very nature of horror movies and the formulas and clichés they follow.
Without spoiling the twists this is a movie that toys with the idea that it isn’t cliché that these tropes always repeat in the genre.
Not because of a lack of creativity but because the horror films we’ve grown up with are all connected.
That every time camp crystal lake added another tally mark to its permanent residents, it wasn’t a movie, but in fact actually happening.
So this Halloween, for the love of Norman Bates, buy this movie. I give it 4.5 screaming, tripping victims out of 5.
