The Cabin in the Woods

When my wife and I first started seeing each other, we went to the movies all the time.  Just about every weekend, and usually a double feature.  I estimate I saw at least 120 films in the theater between 2002 and 2004 (most of them terrible, but my wife has very different taste than I do, and I didn’t really care that much).  Then it tapered off, and we both got much more comfortable watching movies at home on DVD.  In the past five years, I’ve been to the theater only a small handful of times.  The last one was Inception and that was only because my dad was in town and it was something to do.

In a perfect world, the theater experience should be the ideal one.  A dark room, a large screen, an appreciative audience, killer sound system.  But I discovered I haven’t been missing much.  The one advantage is that seeing a movie during its theatrical release gives you the opportunity to discuss it at the same time everyone else is.  I’ve been late to the party on all the newest films.  But I still prefer the home experience.  Endless commercials and trailers for movies I’m not interested in.  A seat far less comfy than my couch.  A guy right behind me munching loudly from his bottomless tub of popcorn.  A couple arriving 15 minutes late (why even bother?) wanting to squeeze past me.  No thank you.  I’m not writing off the theater entirely (it was nice for a hermit like me to do something outside of the house for once) but for the most part, I’ll stick with my couch.

Still, I didn’t have much else on my plate and I wanted to see this so I took the trip.  I am a fan of “Buffy” and “Angel” and “Firefly” so a Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard production with such good word-of-mouth sounded like a safe bet.  And it was.  It’s in the tradition of self-aware horror/comedies like The Evil Dead and Scream (and loaded with references to plenty of others… another area where a pause feature would be handy) but with enough originality and surprises to feel fresh.  The horror genre is one that gets “subverted” a lot, but Whedon and Goddard managed to come up with a few new ways to turn it on its ear.  There were some parts clearly meant to be funny that I wasn’t very amused by (mostly involving the Fran Kranz character) but there’s a lot of humor — especially that in the usual Whedon vein — that works really nicely.  The performances generally aren’t that great, not that they necessarily need to be in this style of film but it might have helped a little.  However, it’s a lot of fun and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.  On my couch.  Rating: Very Good

IMDb