31 days of Horror 2012 day 24

The Cabin in the Woods
2012
Lionsgate DVD

This movie was filmed back in 2009 but held up from being released for a few years.Part of this had to do with MGM filing for bankruptcy. I heard about it in 2009 and all I knew was Joss "Buffy the Vampire slayer" Weldon was one of the writers. Now I enjoyed most of the seasons of the Buffy TV show. So I was wanting to see what he could do with a more serious version of horror. Well in early April 2012 it got a wide release. But the theater in town didn't get it and I didn't get a chance to see it. Thankfully I did real good about avoiding spoilers about the films plot. All I knew before I watched it today was what I had seen in the trailer.

WARNING SPOILERS BELOW SKIP IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM YET!

A group of 5 college students head up to a cabin in the woods. At first I was like "Great we got the normal horror stereotypes." There is the jock,the slut,the stoner,the smart guy and the virginal young lady. But quickly we find out that there is something up and this film isn't gonna be your normal teens/young adults get stalked and killed way out in the woods. It seems there is some kind of underground scientific lab below the cabin. And two guys in it are in charge of making sure that at the very least the four of the group,minus the virgin,die. And it looks like that is what happened. A group of inbred zombie hillbillies attack and the only one left alive is the virginal girl. She is out on the pier and is about to die when we find out the stoner isn't dead. He saved her and leads her to a underground room he has found. And this is where the film takes a major turn. The people in the lab keep talking about how these young adults must die to appease the "Ancient Ones". Which I must assume are the elder Gods from HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. We find out there are more than one lab like this. There seems to be many around the world. Once a year at least 4 people must die to keep the "Ancient Ones" from rising and destroying the world. Well it seems all the other labs have failed this year so it is up to the on in the USA. But the stoner and the virgin find an elevator and go down into the lab. Where they learn all kinds of monsters are kept in cages and depending on what item is messed with in the cabin's basement that determines what creature/creatures come to kill the people. There is a werewolf,zombies,vampires and my favorite a being clearly based on Pinhead from Hellraiser. Well the stoner and virgin manage to find the sacrifice room and then meet up with the director of this operation. Who is  a person I had no idea was in this film. Now I don't want to spoil the ending so that is all I can say.

SPOILERS OVER!

The DVD looks great and has nice strong sound design. The acting is all well done. With all five of the college students doing a great job. Chris Hemsworth plays the jock and this is the best acting I have seen from him so far. But outta the 5 the real stand out is Francis Elliott "Fran" Kranz as Marty the stoner. Most films with stoners overplay it.. But Fran does a great job of not going over the top with his performance. All the FX work is really well done and it was hard to tell what was practical FX and what was CGI. It seems outside of a few people this film is really well liked and considered one of the best horror films of the past few years. Cabin in the Woods gets an almost perfect A.