The Cabin in the Woods

Directed by Drew Goddard

(R)

***

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Unexpected twists transform this would-be horror film into something far more interesting, said Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. When five college students head to a borrowed cabin for a weekend of fun, you might think the story’s big reveal is that the scares to come are actually the work of scientists conducting a diabolical experiment. But co-writers Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard “don’t let us off that easily,” and as “one bizarre development” follows another, their movie becomes an “exciting” puzzler on the nature of free will. The less said about the rest of the plot the better, said Rafer Guzmán in Newsday. This “endlessly inventive” film “speeds along with giddy, infectious energy,” making it “a rare bait and switch where what you get is far better than what you were expecting.” Other writers, as well as true slasher-film fanboys, will probably love it, said Mark Olsen in The Village Voice. But Cabin is burdened by “an off-putting vibe of cocky self-confidence, a ‘you don’t get it’ conviction that it’s something special.” As you might imagine, “it’s not a charming quality in a movie.”