#21 - THE CABIN IN THE WOODS - Horror Countdown to Halloween

This October we here at Dark of the Matinee are counting down our 31 favorite horror films. Join us daily as we countdown from #31 starting on October 1, 2012 leading up to #1 on Halloween!

#21 – THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (2011)

Dir. Drew Goddard

Kristen Connolly protecting herself from a zombie

We’ve been chugging through our countdown to Halloween at a steady pace of one movie a day and now we’re at number 21!  A new personal favorite of mine is The Cabin in the Woods! The Cabin in the Woods just got its DVD release and I picked it up right away. The DVD has plenty of great features and commentary and I’m sure it’s going to be on pretty constant rotation in my Blu-Ray Player. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it now and then come back and read this because the first watch is best if you don’t know what’s coming.

The Cabin in the Woods is essentially two stories that start separate and then work their way together. The first is about a group of young and sexy friends who take a trip to….you guessed it...A cabin in the woods! It starts as your typical horror movie, a group of immature and rowdy young adults climb into an RV and head out of the city. They stop to get fuel at a very seedy gas station in the middle of nowhere where a creepy old man warns them about the perils that await them during their stay at the cabin. Of course they ignore him and head out into the woods. They get to the cabin and start to unpack and have some fun.

We second story developing here is set in an industrial control room where a group of people are preparing for some sort of event. They are taking bets and settling in to the control room. There is a high sense of security in the room and there are monitors everywhere. Eventually we learn that this control room is controlling what happens at the cabin. They have cameras and microphones hidden throughout the cabin and they can see everything that’s going on. The control room has the ability to change the temperature, the mood and even the sensibilities of the cabin’s inhabitants.

What horror movie isn't complete without a killer clown? Matty?

As the group in the cabin starts to lose their inhibitions they become more risky; suddenly a door leading to a cellar blasts open and the group decides to head down and take a look. The cellar is full of trinkets and other interesting items that they start to go through until each one has something that catches their eye. As they become entranced in each object they start to see what it can do. Little do they know that each of the items is a trigger that is set to unleash a horrible monster that has only one goal: killing them until they are dead!  Finally, the youngest girl of the group reads from an old journal. She reads a passage that releases a zombie family from their graves who are out for blood…and probably brains. From that moment on, the group fights for their survival and for the future of civilization as they know it.

Upon first viewing of The Cabin in the Woods Matty, Chris and I were blown away. We haven’t seen something so original and well written in the horror genre for quite some time. This film was directed by the amazing Drew Goddard and was written by Goddard and Joss Whedon; two names that surely will pique the interest of any moviegoer right now. They did an amazing job of not only making something fresh, but using stories that we’re familiar with to do it. The blood and gore were a ton of fun and it seemed like every performance in the film was dead on. The film boasts a great cast and is surly going to be on my list of favorite horror films for quite some time.

-Brett O. Walker

Mando Poster for The Cabin in the Woods