Simon’s Review of The Cabin in the Woods

Out of all the movies that Daniel’s made me sit through, this was the only one so far I could actually watch. Or watch most of, anyway.

I guess because it’s not really that scary? Which is the point, I guess. It’s like, an anti-horror movie, or something.

Look, I know everyone but me saw this movie like ten years ago, okay? Cut me some slack. At least that means I can spoil it without anyone getting mad.

The plot is pretty much that a bunch of generic horror movie teenagers go camping in a cabin in the woods and get murdered by zombies, but it turns out it’s because some corporate business guys who live in a weird underground bunker are making sure they get murdered, because the plot of every horror movie in the world has actually just been a big government conspiracy to do human sacrifices so that the elder gods or something don’t get angry and wake up and destroy the world. Then in the end two of the teenagers don’t die, so that’s exactly what happened.

I was kind of surprised by how violent it was, since Daniel tricked me into watching it by telling me it was written by the guy who directed the Avengers so I was expecting it to be funny. I guess parts of it were a bit funny, though not as funny as Daniel thought it was. Anyway, that also made me think it would have a kind of happy ending, which it super doesn’t. Instead they unleash an army of monsters, kill everyone and splatter blood everywhere, and then let the world end because they decide it’s kind of shitty how the world only keeps existing by killing innocent people.

I don’t know, I feel like you can kind of see where they’re coming from with that. I probably would have let the world end too, honestly. There’s a point where it’s not worth it anymore, I think. But that’s just me, I know not everyone would think. Which is kind of what I think is interesting about the movie. It’s something that you can think about a little bit, instead of just hiding behind your hands for the whole movie and waiting for it to be over. Usually movies like this, when Daniel forces me to watch them (love you Daniel but you’re a psychopath), are just pointless exercises in violence and sex that are there to make you scream because someone got their intestines ripped out through their nipples or whatever but not really for anything else. And I guess that’s fine if you like that kind of movie, but it’s nice to see a movie like that that tries to have an actual point.

I think probably my favourite thing about this movie is that it makes other movies that are like it less scary. Because Cabin in the Woods isn’t that scary because you can see the strings holding all the monsters up, so to speak—the movie makes a point of showing how everything that happens is just because someone made it happen, and the whole joke of the movie is that all movies like this are basically the same, so it lets you see the strings in all the other movies that are like this one. You can just imagine a dude in a suit calling the shots when someone’s being murdered by a zombie spider or whatever and it makes it less scary.

So yeah, I actually liked this one. It makes fun of the whole genre of movies in a smart way that makes you realize that what’s really scary is not knowing what’s happening. By showing you exactly what’s happening behind the scenes, it makes watching other movies like it a lot more interesting, cause you know how they work. And that makes watching them a lot less scary and a lot more fun.

I assume. I don’t plan to actually test this theory.