Ah, the wonderful world of the metacinematic. That play for very coffee growers that can easily fall into a lazy mood if it isn’t done with some cunning, and that can lose viewers if it doesn’t provide some chicha and stays in the underground grace. Achieving the balance that manages to subvert and entertain is complexbut not impossible.
This last decade, which has not been short of self-conscious efforts and subversive intentions, we have found a case that was capable of showing the best for all viewers. This is the case of ‘The Cabin in the Woods’, a amazing piece that deconstructs the codes of terror and that you can now enjoy through Amazon Prime Video.
Five kids. A cabin. Bad things.
The premise couldn’t seem more typical and lane on the surface. Five students go deep into the woods to spend the weekend in a cabin.. Cut off from civilization, a sportsman (Chris Hemsworth), a shy girl (Kristen Connolly), a more rogue (Anna Hutchison), the other young man with the most furnished head (Jesse Williams) and the one who looks like candle holders and relief get together. comedian (Fran Kranz).
At the same time, we see a couple of technicians (Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins) entering an industrial plant, and we do not know their relationship to what we are seeing. Until the film unveils the cake, also explaining why its characters seem so clichéd and making clear the rules of the game it wants to change. Before you know it, you see what ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ wants to be more playful than the classic teen torment tape.
Part of the success of the film is in those responsible. Joss Whedon Y Drew Goddard -both from the script, and the latter also assuming the direction- take advantage of their encyclopedic knowledge of genre cinema to point out several of its common places and criticize some of its conventions. But it does not remain in the easy ironic distance, but its deconstruction is used to make a film that is as funny as it is concerned about characters that beat you without realizing it.
‘The cabin in the woods’: subversion and celebration
The film was born from his intention to overcome the trend of “torture-porn” in which horror films starring teenagers have fallen. Through small details he shows humanity and compassion for these heroes without stopping doing very violent and unleashed sequences, seasoned with a delightfully twisted sense of humor. How well focused the thanks are makes the film not a mockery of this type of movies, but a celebration of them.
Getting everything to go hand in hand, both deconstruction and interest in what is happening in history, is the great triumph of Goddard and Whedon, turning ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ into one of the best genre films we’ve seen in the last decade. If you have not yet been exposed to his subversive talent -and it would not be a surprise, since in our country it was not released in theaters at the time-, it is a good opportunity to do so.