Usually when a film is held up it can signal bad news and it’s taken quite some time – nearly two years – for Joss Whedon’s horror opus, Cabin in the Woods, to get set up for a release.
Finally, the film premiered at the South By Southwest film festival (SXSW) and reviews are coming in. So how did it do?
Pretty good, apparently. Entertainment Weekly’s report is headlined, “Cabin in the Woods kills at premiere. Just don’t talk about it!”
As Adam B Vary tells us, “Cabin in the Woods is so riddled with genuine spoilers that talking about the film without ruining it in some way is an exercise in futility.”
In fact, Whedon introduced the film and said, “I hope you enjoy it, and then sorta keep it to yourself.”
The Hollywood Reporter, however, called it “a playful meta-horror movie,” but ultimately felt the film was “too enamored of its own game to be scary, shrewd or more than occasionally funny…the knowing self-amusement wears thin.” The Reporter writes more, but gives quite a lot away in the first few paragraphs, and I’m not going to spoil this any further for anyone.
Meanwhile, Collider calls Cabin “one of the sharpest satires of the horror genre ever made. Great satire can only come from intelligent, witty and devious minds. Director Drew Goddard and his co-writer Joss Whedon have those minds. They have dissected not just the ‘cabin in the woods’ sub-genre, but the entire horror genre, and most importantly, our enjoyment of it.”
Sounds like we could have another Scream on our hands. Look for Cabin in the Woods on April 13, a Friday, naturally.
