I was a late addition to horror film fandom. In preadolescent horror movies were... well, horrific, and people who liked them were very disturbed people. Not until being conned into a Friday the 13^th marathon did I discover that horror films are a lot of fun. Stupid, exploitative and often terrible, or to use that terrific composite term so often applied to the genre ‘schlock’, they’re also hilarious and entertaining in the way absurd comedies and brainless action films resonate with certain dark corners of our brains..

So I was pretty excited to finally see Cabin in the Woods, a meta horror movie with a twist I’d studiously avoided spoiling for myself. As a schlock horror movie Cabin in the Woods falls short, but as a genre breaking twist film it succeeds massively. This is not a movie you want to miss.

To go into any sort of detail on the film is, I feel, too dangerous to explore without tipping the hat. It’s a big hat, maybe not the subtlest, but a big hat that deserves to stay on the films head until you get to go and see it yourself. The safest thing to say is that the film is about a group of teenagers who drive to a cabin in the woods to spend a weekend. As a hundred other horror movies have begun. But that familiar setup is the core of the movie and it’s the revolving outer pieces that are teased that make the film so enjoyable. While these pieces may be obvious to most horror fans it’s still extremely satisfying and entertaining when they all finally click together. I was laughing like a maniac for the last twenty minutes of the film, just having an excellent movie watching experience.

The film is directed by Drew Goddard in his debut behind the camera, long term writing partner of Joss Whedon, who co writes and produces the film. The two and their shared history on shows like Angel and Buffy, as well as Drew’s other writing work on other projects like Cloverfield, Lost and Alias leave those sorts of thumb prints all over the film. It’s exactly the sort of movie you’d imagine the people behind Buffy creating if they had the budget and no studio interference in terms of content.

While the films major conceits and pay off is hugely entertaining, it does fall short a little in its ‘story within a story’ elements. The violence and scares are minimal and seasoned horrorphiles will find most of the early proceedings a little too sedate and the uninitiated maybe good for a few predictable jumps. If you’re concerned about the fear factor, don’t expect anything scarier than the creepier Buffy episodes. While there’s a reasonable gore level towards the end it’s mostly for comic effect and tends to happen in the peripheral. The ending is also a little more whimsical than it could it be. It’s a satisfactory ending, capping of an unusual film nicely, but not the great ending I was hoping for.

In conclusion I can say that Cabin in the Woods was one of my favourite films this year and the best horror film I’ve seen in a long while. Often describing a movie as an extended Twilight Zone episode is used to deride a film, although I’ve always considered it the highest of praise for a movie, but Cabin in the Woods definitely fits that pseudo genre of ‘extended Twilight episode films’. In fact, I can think of few things more world tremblingly awesome than a twenty first century incarnation of The Twilight Zone with Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon at the helm. You’ll think so too after you’ve seen Cabin in the Woods.