Okay, so I read some reviews about this movie that spanned from horrible to great to stupid to innovative. There is no way to review this movie properly without revealing anything, so if you hope for a surprise, f*ck off. Just kidding. The beginning of the movie, within the opening scene, reveals the entire plot anyway. We saw a trailer for the movie a couple hours before we decided to see it. As the trailer went on, Kim said she had seen enough and wanted to go watch it. I watched the whole thing and saw that this would not be a typical horror movie.
The biggest thing this movie does is perhaps the one thing we both hate the most about movies. You know how characters sit at like a diner and start talking to each other, but it is in a way that reveals things about their character. In scenes like this, you ask yourself, "Self, when would I EVER talk like that with somebody - be it a stranger or a friend?" Most likely never. However, the men in the control room are the father from "Step Brothers" and the villain from "Billy Madison" - I do not and probably never will know their names. They did a terrific job though. They discuss what they need to do in the control room and how other places around the world are doing. So, my review needs to reveal the plot for anything to make sense and intrigue you into seeing the movie.
Okay, so every year, 4 to 5 sacrifices must be made in a certain order so that "The Ancients" do not rise and destroy the world. Not the plot you expect for a movie about college kids going to a cabin for the weekend to die. It turns out, this is a year long vetting process and things happen that these guys control over a year so that people will get up to this cabin to be killed. That's just in America. There are places all over the world with the same group trying to appease the ancients. Whether all the other places around the world do it first - as long as the sacrifices are made, the world is safe. Okay? Oh, and bottom line - the American base has a 100% "clear rate" - USA USA USA!!!
So Thor cut his hair and got tiny and takes a bunch of no named actors to a new cabin his brother or cousin bought. You have the whore (some whore), the jock (Thor), the Scholar (I think he was an asiany guy?), the fool (a funny high-pitched stoner guy who would've been better to play Shaggy), and the virgin. Of course you don't realize these are the people to be sacrificed in that order until Sigourney Weaver shows up at the end to explain it. All five of these college kids are pretty enlightened and actually seem like a nice group of friends.
Thor wants the virgin to hook up with the scholar, so that's one subplot. The fool is high out of his mind. They drive up this mountain and must cross through a tunnel. As they go through one end of the tunnel, a hawk flies from one side of the mountain trying to go to the other side where the end of the tunnel is. The hawk gets electrocuted and an invisible-electric grid fence is shown.
Long story short, the guys in the control room use different gases to alter the realities of the college kids. The house is set up to have the basement door open up and the kids go check it out, looking at the old artifacts. The control room is so advanced, they have unlimited "nightmare scenarios" locked up underneath the house. Hear me out. They have zombies, zombie families, some butcher with saw blades in his head, giant spiders, serpents, teeth-faced girls, ghosts, evil robots. Each coed picks up some artifact they find in the basement. These are all just symbols for their respective nightmare. Meanwhile, the people and staff in the control room are taking bets on what group will be picked to do the killing. Some zombie family wins, and engineering plus an intern win the grand prize. It was actually rather humorous.
So the guys in the control room use gases and scenery to steer the kids into the zombie family. They can't control the zombies, but can make the kids encounter the zombies in the order they need to be killed. This is not revealed until later in the movie, and has little impact on your enjoyment of the movie. Ultimately we learn that 4 of the 5 need to die, and the virgin is optional. The zombies are pretty cool looking for zombies. The other nightmares that you get to see are pretty cool looking too. I like the werewolf and the eventual revelation of the merman is funny.
The "nightmares" trapped in boxes below the basement I believe are just a way for the people in the control room to have some "fun" with this annual killing event. The old days used to just be a slaughter, but these people must feel they are above that. So they have some crazy shit locked underground to release for their amusement.
Overall, I could give this movie a B. But a really GOOD B. Like a B before the class curve was adjusted due to the highest scoring movie the Avengers getting an A+. So with the curve, B+ to Cabin in the Woods. Enough of this letter math.
I enjoyed this movie a lot, as did Kim. There were a decent number of people in the theater considering this movie has been out for weeks and other great box office movies have been killing it. Plus, we were near Temple University, and with "Think Like A Man" also playing, I am surprised at the number of people there. Anywho, the movie had those moments that made me jump, some intense moments that had Kim gripping my arm hard, good effects, good action, and great comedy throughout. Normal people who reviewed this movie gave me the impression that this movie was either going to be fun to watch or fun to make fun of. I am pleased it was the former. I was very entertained from start to finish. Kim was enthralled with it as well. I think it is a good fun movie for a date, if the kids today still do the dinner/movie thing as opposed to rainbow parties and whipit parties.
As I think back about it, I like how the beginning of the movie reveals that there is a secret society of people controlling the whole thing. If the zombies showed up, tracked everyone down, and we didn't see things like the hawk fly into the fence or the control room scenes, then all of a sudden at the end it was revealed that it was a controlled killing scenario, I would've thought it was stupid. Once they told me it was absurd, I enjoyed the movie. Start to finish.
My favorite scene has to be Thor's death scene. In the beginning of the movie, you see the hawk fly into the fence and die. As the kids try to go back out the tunnel the control room caves it in and the kids retreat back down the road. They had a motorcycle attached to the back of their RV. Thor says he is going to jump the canyon and goes into a heroic diatribe about bringing them all help and they will survive. Meanwhile, I am laughing because I know he is going to die. I know he is going to get halfway across and die. In midair. Then he jumps. And he dies. And slides down the fence into a seemingly bottomless pit. I lost it hysterically laughing.
I guess I mentioned a lot about the movie without actually giving away too much. You see the setup from the beginning. You get to like the characters, even the killers in the control room. You honestly don't know what will happen. And the movie had enough jump in your seat moments and I had several laughs. It was like a horror version of the Avengers (same guy wrote and directed it). It was a romping good time.
Two thumbs way up.
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