The Cabin in the Woods | Joss Whedon & Drew Goddard's fiendish chiller turns horror inside out

The Cabin in the Woods DVD packshot

Horror fans will have encountered this scenario countless times before: five all-American college students head off for a weekend getaway at an isolated cabin, but their hijinks quickly turn to terror when they unwittingly unleash sinister forces.

Before you yawn, take another look. The makers of The Cabin in the Woods, Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, Dollhouse) and Drew Goddard (Cloverfield) aren’t churning out yet another haunted-house or slasher movie. Instead, they’ve come up with a fiendishly clever, mind-bending chiller that turns the horror genre inside out and holds its conventions up for examination.

The Cabin in the Woods will get you thinking about what it means to watch a horror movie, but it’s not just a mischievous exercise in post-modern cleverness, it’s also a giddily funny, gulpingly scary, enormously entertaining thrill ride.

Released on DVD & Blu-ray by Lionsgate Home Entertainment on Monday 24th September.

 

Jason Best

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.