How have I gone so many years not realizing that Cabin In the Woods is not the same movie as Cabin Fever? Somehow that got into my head and so whenever I see that title crawl by as I scroll a streamer’s “Horror” collection I’ll think “Nah, seen that twice already, so many movies I’ve not seen yet why not hit those first?” and I’ll ignore it. Then I saw some pics one day of freaky-deaky monster stuff from the movie and I’m all “Wait a minnit! That movie is about flesh-eating viruses, what the hell is with the monst…” and that’s when I realized I had spent years assuming I already saw this movie twice.
So okay, this one, unlike Cabin Fever, involves a group of somewhat-priveledged college kids getting into an RV and driving out for a vacation into the forest and get away from all that city stuff – yes I can see now that I might have easily been lead to believe these two movies were the same but I assure you they are different.
It’s a Joss Whedon thing, this movie, so expect a few Buffy/Angel actors to pop up here and there, like more than a dozen of them. Super fun, unless you’re not a fan of Buffy/Angel but that’s improbable because that would make you lame, and no lame people read this website.
So they go off in the Winnegarbo and some super duper government science guys are tracking them for unknown reasons. Odd. They stop at a run-down hicktown gas station to fill up their Stairstream with refined dinosaur guts and a weird feral pre-teen who somehow knows Kung Fu gets angry and kicks everyone’s… wait you’re right, wrong movie.
So it’s true, the premise of college kids getting a van and driving out to the inhospitable woods for a vacation is a premise older than Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In just the 1980’s there must have been 140 movie that start just like this one. It’s not too much to ask that more than just one of these has a karate child with a mullet and a taste for pancakes.
So after they have a pleasant conversation with the guy who runs the shitty little gas station (and it’s a good thing they didn’t run over his kid with a dirt bike and have the father call up an evil revenge spirit to kill them all, because that would mean I’m watching the wrong movie again) they go out onto a dirt road covered covered in dried up leaves to a small cabin with a front porch and a rustic basement containing the recorded chants translated from an ancient Sumerian book of the dead that makes evil spirits come out of the dirt and makes me realize that wow, there were a whole lot of these movies, weren’t there?
As it turns out, the similarities to other movies is intentional. The creators of the movie were looking to bring back all the elements of classic GenX era horror movies that they felt had been subverted by a recent trend toward hyper-violent torture porn… minus all the element they DIDN’T like from those aforementioned GenX horror movies. It’s a horror, it’s a comedy, and it’s a statement on the industry. It’s also really good. I’ll continue making fun of it for another few paragraphs but you should add this flick to your to-do list when I’m done.
So there are the five kids (and by “kids” I mean actors in their mid-30’s portraying 20-22 year-olds), the RV is someone’s Dad’s, the cabin is someone’s cousin’s, there is the garden variety basic slutty girl, the smart-but-beautiful final-girl archetype, the slut girl’s football bro jock boyfriend, his equally-football but much less creepo friend who is the blind date to the final girl, who we can assume will probably sacrifice himself so that final girl can survive, finally we have the official fifth-wheel, the dorky stoner who no one is gonna fuck but he gets all the funny lines. Probably because there isn’t a single scene without him smoking weed in it, I mean how can he not be funny? The dude is G.O.N.E.!
Of course there’s the second part of the premise, that of the super top secret government sciencey guys. A secret underground bunker full of them, controlling what’s happening around the collegiate quintuple, watching on closed circuit TVs and making wagers on the outcome. It’s also 30% staffed by ancillary characters from the TV series “Angel.” The pretty college white people settle in for a night of “Truth Or Dare,” slutty girl does some slut stuff, then BOOM! Big noise happens, mysteriousness enters the picture, and now it’s the science government people’s job… to fuck with them. Just have a huge laugh at their expense. I approve. Fuck these 38-year-old children!
Actually, the “kid” characters aren’t at all unlikable. I guess that was an important consideration when Whedon and Whatsisname were writing this thing up. They didn’t want to have the kids be idiot douchebags.
The fratty co eds discover there’s a basement. Because “hooray!” They go down the stairs and discover that under the main floor is a secret lair known as the New England Roadside Antique Store. Seriously, the crowded piles of old stuff on display looks like every New England antique shop I’ve ever pulled off a rural highway to look in. “Look! So much cool stuff, undeniably cool stuff that I have absolutely no use for!” Walk down all the aisles, even MORE cool old stuff! Cool old stuff that I can’t imagine ever finding a use for, other than to put it on a shelf in my house so that others can walk up to it and say “Oh neat! Cool thing you have there!” and I can say “Yep! It’s a neat thing, and it lives on that shelf and that’s it!” This is a haunted basement under a shitty old cabin in the woods, being monitored by scientists who make a secondary income from betting on college students they’re about to mess with. Maybe this old candle stick with a ballerina on it, maybe I can use this? Or, I dunno, this old mechanical hand-crank egg beater. Or this ceramic milk jug that looks like something a cartoon bear would drink liquor out of. How about this old fountain pen? It came from out of that glass cabinet over there, with the other old fountain pens. Not that cabinet, that’s the one with old grandpa watches. It’s between the grandpa watch case and the case with old pocket knives and military insignias.
Yeah, so I go to so many antique shops.
Final Girl finds a creepy old diary written by a 1906 girl living with a weird culty farm family, reads it out loud in all its folksy goodness, including the part that’s a chant in Latin that makes farm zombies come out of the ground when read out loud. Good day for the Maintenance Department at government mad science incorporated, they put a bet down on “farm zombies” and win that bracket this time around.
Side note, on that bracket whiteboard is a number of evil entities that people can bet on. In the middle of that list of baddies like “Alien Beast” and “Mermen” and “Dismemberment Goblins” and Hell Lord” and “Sugarplum Fairy” and “Dragonbat” is one simply titled “Kevin.” No one in the entire outfit placed a bet on “Kevin.” Their loss, Kevins are awesome!!
College kids go back upstairs, slutty girl does even MORE slutty stuff, but slutty girl always dies early on, so she’s gotta do all her poses and gyrations before it’s too late to do slut stuff. Football bro and slutty girl go off to fuck in the woods… where the murder farm zombies live. Mad scientists start setting the scene with spotlights and “pheromone mist,” sexytime begins, and then the farm zombies show up with all their favorite rusted pointy things. Cool!! The messed up stuff happens, zombie monsters do their thing, science government people say a prayer to their necklaces (‘fuck is it with necklaces, anyway? People say a prayer or ask for special favors or whatever, then they kiss their necklaces. Like, how amazing can that jewelry be if it grants you wishes like that? I have a necklace, know what it does? It tarnishes and I have to clean it up. It’s like every week this thing starts to turn black around the edges and I have to take it off and do the whole polishing routine. I could TRY to do the whole pray and kiss maneuver, see if I’ve got one of those special necklaces, but I suspect all that’s going to happen is a meeting with necklace HR to give me lectures about what “consent” is. No wishes, just a headache. where do THESE people go jewelry shopping? Because I totally need to shop at That joint!)…
Now I lost my place. Prayers to necklace, bunch of kissing, OH! Right then they pull a lever and blood goes into a carved stone thing. So there’s some kind of supernatural god or demon or devil or folk ancestor spirits thing happening here. It appears the science guys are also religion guys. Okay, I can follow this. What’s next?
Jockboy goes back, tells everyone “StAy InSiDe!! ScArY mOnStErS!!!” and they lock up the doors. Then the JesusScience guys pump “We Should Split Up” gas into the vents. What is this gas? It’s a special gas with the sole purpose of making people decide “Know what? Screw that last plan, we should split up and cover more ground!” Amazing. Chemistry is amazing. Despite the fact that this cabin is the size of the smallest single-wide trailer in existence, so “covering ground” is likely just a matter of looking this way, then turning your head and looking the other way.
Don’t know what I mean by “size of a single-wide trailer?” Maybe you need to check your privilege then. (snaps fingers left and then right)
Another co ed gets the axe, another lever is pulled and some more blood gets dripped into a stone carved thing, and there’s a little earthquake. My thoughts, now, are that they worship the god of earthquakes, and he needs to be fed. Shit I should have figured this one out at the very beginning, it was so obvious! Earthquake god!
An escape attempt by the remaining co eds, and they discover “ThErE iS MoRe To ThIs PlAcE tHaN mEeTs ThE eYe!!!!” This is fun! I can’t believe Mido is sleeping through this movie.
Things happen at Cabinland, the godscientists are happy and they get their drink on and play some yacht rock. And yet! Things in Cabinland aRe NoT wHaT tHeY sEeM!!!!
Stoner is the one who starts figuring things out. Right? Usually it’s the “Wholesomer Boyfriend Option” character who figures it out, while the stoner is just comic relief and slasher fodder. So maybe instead of eating your Wheaties to get ahead, you should smoke more weed. A lot of weed. ALL the weed. Then you’ll sleep through your alarm, lose your job, and with that much fewer fast food employees we’ll have healthier food options and we will survive as a nation and not just grow fat and lethargic with bad skin and heart disease. Oh and you’ll survive a horror movie, for at least 15 to 29 minutes longer than if you were the slutgirl or football date-rape bro.
Final Girl and Stoner figure some stuff out, and escape into the belly of the beast, and things become ever more cool. Cooler and Sigournier. All the nightmare monsters get loose and run amok, and at no point is it made clear to me which one is “Kevin” but I have a few ideas.
Solid movie, good amount of funny, it’s one of those “Horror movies for horror movie people” sort of movies.