'The Cabin in the Woods' Reviews

They're rolling in and they all have the same knowing wink-wink tone. Like there's something special here.

At Quiet Earth, Dead by Dawn says:

• Horror-comedy can be a tricky genre to get right, but Cabin in the Woods just manages to straddle the line between funny and genuinely creepy pretty much throughout, mostly thanks to the inventive writing and playing around of genre conventions from screenwriters Joss 'Firefly' Whedon and Drew 'Cloverfield' Goddard. I really enjoyed it and actually felt it was a near perfect example of how to play the game and keep the audience hooked for 90 minutes of fun and blood and guts. **spoiler warning***

Marshall Fine:

• What else can I saw without giving away the movie's multiple surprises and shocks? Not a lot: It's a delightfully constructed puzzle, one that pays attention to its source material - the modern teen-horror-movie formula - while poking fun at it simultaneously.

Eric Walkuski begins with a common warning:

• (NOTE: This review will be almost completely SPOILER FREE. That said, if you want to know absolutely nothing about THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, then you should move along...)

and continues with

• CABIN puts its mark on the genre so indelibly that it'll be near impossible to watch your favorite “Dead Teenager” movie again without having Whedon and Goddard's film pop up in your mind 

and

• THE CABIN IN THE WOODS' affectionate and twisted approach to the well-worn material makes it unforgettable. Intense, funny and sometimes just plain nuts, it's a sure bet to land on Top Ten lists and achieve “classic” status by year's end. 

 Cinema Blend starts with:

• How much should you know about The Cabin in the Woods before you see it? Ideally, nothing-- so if you click away from this review now, I understand. 

and continues

• But from that premise The Cabin in the Woods sets up a high-energy and electric game of chess with its audience, setting up every trope of its creepy-house genre, tearing it apart, and then going even deeper into a central mystery that only gets more satisfying as it goes.

Nicely turned.

These reviews are all a tip of the hat. 'The Cabin in the Woods' is set up for major business not only in its theatrical run but everywhere it turns up down the road. It's been clear from the get-go this flick would become a cult classic, but I never figured it would be a genre molding event.

It would seem the cabin-in-the-woods class of movies has evolved. There's no turning back. Conventional, by-the-numbers, low-budget schlock just won't do anymore.

,