The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

 Director: Drew Goddard

I actually own this movie and gave it a rewatch - my fourth viewing of it since it came out. It's still a ton of fun, honoring so many great horror standards with its clever "meta" approach. 

The movie follows five college friends as they take a weekend trip to the secluded, titular cabin in the woods. As they approach, things start to take turns very familiar to anyone who has seen popular and cult horror movies from the 1980s and later: the cabin is a dark and foreboding; there's an eerie basement with a vast assortment of creepy objects; and the overly curious visitors accidentally unleash hellish forces that seek to kill them all. Before the proceedings turn wildly violent, we also get some overt sexuality and dashes of budding romance. Again, very familiar tropes of the horror genre. What is new here is that, outside and above everything happening in and around the cabin, is a vast, bureaucratic organization that is orchestrating the entire thing. Their purpose is to stage the entire group execution, all unknown to the five victims, in order to appease a group of Lovecraftian "old gods" who slumber beneath the earth. These titans of evil and destruction only refrain from annihilating humankind if an annual ritual sacrifice is made in order to appease them.

The Cabin in the Woods is so entertaining, especially for horror fans. I'm not a hardcore horror aficionado by any means, but I've seen most of the standards and classics. I've also enjoyed many of the most frightening and clever films in the genre, like The Shining, the Evil Dead trilogy, and An American Werewolf in London, among many others, multiple times. Like many of the greats, The Cabin in the Woods, written by Joss Whedon, finds a perfect balance between giving you legitimate scares, making you laugh, and dazzling you with its mysterious and layered tale. Yes, the main five characters are loose archetypes of the typical slasher victims: the jock, the whore, the nerd, etc., but Whedon added more depth to them and made them genuinely funny and empathetic. They crack good jokes, and when things start to go horrifyingly haywire, we actually care. 

Our five friends begin to sense something 
horribly amiss in their weekend getaway cabin.
Things only get crazier, on many literal and
figurative levels.

The horror elements hit well. While there isn't anything particularly new to most of the scares, they are effective. Creepy zombies. Jump scares. Gut-wrenching fatalities. Chases through creepy a creepy cabin and the surrounding woods. They're all there, and they're all done well. Beyond that, though, is the larger picture of the powers that are orchestrating everything. The desensitized bureaucrats are really funny in their own ways, but their callousness is quietly more frightening than any of the more immediate, grisly horrors that we get.

The third act of this one is what really puts it over the top, though. Once the grand secret is revealed and the two "survivors" uncover the greater scheme at work, this movie supplies so many fun "Oh shit!" moments in the form of revelations, more creepy horror entities, and straight-up action. To cap it all off, it has the guts to supply a rather dark ending, something which I always appreciate, especially in horror movies. 

Back when I first bought a blu-ray player, The Cabin in the Woods was one of two blu-ray discs that I purchased to break it in. I'm glad I did, as I've gone back to it every few years since, and I'll continue to do so.