The Cabin In The Woods is the best horror film in ages

I remember when Scream came out, everyone was applauding it for turning horror cliches upside down. It was an okay movie. Personally I felt it was too self-congratulatory when it successfully flipped said cliches. I don’t know. I guess it was kind of like the Spaceballs of horror films in the fact it was too silly to be taken seriously. Then again, it was too normal and embarrassingly mainstream to fully embrace its silliness. Hard to explain, really….

Ah, here’s the word I’m looking for: mediocre. That describes the entire series, really. Horror movies aren’t supposed to have a robust cast of returning characters. They’re not supposed to be a fucking soap opera. Wes Craven’s failure to kill Sidney by part four was a major misstep.

Evil Dead. Now there’s a good horror series. Those movies were made for horror fans who were growing tired of the usual tropes. Scream, on the other hand, was seemingly made for non-horror fans who only thought horror fans were too stupid to get the jokes.

Imagine my surprise when I saw Cabin In The Woods expecting your usual Hollywood horror movie “with a twist.” It’s about your typical teens in, uh, a cabin in the woods. Only it isn’t. The poster gives away the fact there’s more going on. So does the trailer. Those who managed to miss those hints would be pretty surprised by the opening seconds of the film. Who the hell are those guys? What is that place? Did I walk into the wrong movie?

And what the hell… freakin’ mermen?

I can’t tell you anything else about the plot because knowing anything about this movie defeats the purpose of watching it in the first place. I will say I love the ending because I love crazy stuff. I was energized by the creativity and lack of restraint. I laughed, I cringed, and then I laughed some more. That’s all they wanted to do: to entertain us while wearing their horror inspirations on their sleeve.

It’s sad, really. We won’t see another American horror movie as original as this one for a very long time. Bring on Paranormal Activity part… what is it now? 4? Jesus Christ.