Contemplating 'Cabin in the Woods'

I can't stand horror movies.

I don't like watching people get murdered.  I don't like seeing organs cut out of people's bodies.  I don't like slick banter during slayings.  Call me old fashioned.  Please.

In high school, I think I even did a speech about Kevin Williamson after he started writing the Scream trilogy, so I wasn't always so stuffy.  (They were very lax with speech topics in my high school.)  I couldn't get enough of Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courtney Cox running for their lives while still being just too cool for school.  But then, I also used to like singer-songwriters.  Now both are equally painful for me.

So, I decided to go see 'Cabin in the Woods' this weekend as a change of pace.  I tend to agree with most film reviewers and this one got atypically positive reviews.  Intrigued by the 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I decided to put aside my distaste for the genre and pay $13 for thing.

During the trailers, I realized I'd made a horrible mistake.  Particularly creepy was a preview for a movie about people who lived through the 80's Chernobyl disaster and (I would guess) suffered from radiation that causes you to murder people for some far-fetched reason that will be posited as totally normal.  The radiation altered the brain stem to where it only can survive on human flesh. Some nonsense like that.  But there is a child and an abandoned warehouse so I can imagine what sort of visceral pleasure suicidal teenagers could get from it.  Either way, my palms were already sweating.

Then Cabin in the Woods started.  And it was like nothing I've ever seen before.  It was a more brutal Hunger Games movie with even higher stakes (if you can believe that).  It was self-referential in a way that Scream was, but the settings were all mythological and over-the-top.  Believe me, the way this movie ends, is in no way what you would expect from how it begins.

I hated every minute of it, reminding myself that I could go to Panera after it was over.

However, when it was over, I couldn't stop talking about it.  What did it mean?  Was it supposed to be campy?  Did they know those parts were as silly?  I texted friends about it, read reviews, and forced myself to think about it before bed so that I wouldn't dream about it.  (I often employ this sort of reverse psychology on myself).  This movie really got into my head.  Everything I expected to happen, didn't.  The murders weren't even the unsettling part.  It was the general idea, the human lack of empathy, the way they weren't afraid to go there.  What's more interesting is that previews didn't even hint at the bizarre events that were going to unfold onscreen. Now there's a rarity.

Then I thought - how many movies can I say that about?  Almost none.  There are movies with little twists and turns that are twisty and turny in that way we've come to expect.  This was unexpected without being expected.  I swear that makes sense.   The closest example I can think of is 'Closer' with Julia Roberts and Jude Law from several years ago.  That movie was extremely unpleasant, but I couldn't shake it. Just the fact that I can compare this to a drama based on a play hints at how themes from this movie didn't have the typical empty horror origin.

I recommend it. I didn't enjoy it, but I recommend it.  Strangely I feel like that's the highest form of praise you can give.  And it will be YEARS before I see another horror film.