“The Cabin in the Woods” is a horror and comedy movie that manages to become a satire of the entire horror genre that somewhat links most horror movies to the universe in this movie. Produced by Joss Whedon, who also made “The Avengers” and “The Justice League,” “The Cabin in the Woods” is an interesting parody of the behind-the-scenes of classic horror movies and the real meaning behind why they happen. 

First-time director Drew Goddard was a big part of making this movie what it is, treating it as if it is the last movie he would ever direct again, so he put all of his love and passion into this movie, even getting hands-on with the effects and action in the movie. 

The script of the movie follows five teenagers who eventually turn into the classic stereotypes of horror movies during their stay at the cabin. The movie cuts back and forth between the teenagers going through their horrible weekend, and the people underneath them controlling it all. 

The main two engineers at the facility, Hadley and Sitterson, played by Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins, respectively, add most of the comedic aspects of this movie, giving an oddly lighthearted tone to their scenes despite the tragic deaths happening during the rest of it. 

The actors who portray the teenagers are able to do very well at changing from their more developed and smart personalities at the start of the movie and developing into dumb and unreasonable characters that you would see in a classic horror movie, making stupid decisions such as splitting up or going into the woods alone at night.

The gore in the movie is pretty good, and a very interesting part of the movie is that Goddard had a rule on the set to make every effect practical, meaning there was no use of digital editing or add-ins into the scenes, and employing a huge amount of special effects workers to get the job done, regarding the number of monsters and non-human creatures in the last act of the movie. 

Many of the deaths in the movies were filled with gore, and they looked very realistic, well-planned out, and at times, even scary. The movie has a few jumpscares but many you can expect, as there are sometimes long pauses before a scare, or you can assume what is going to happen due to past scenes and information, which somewhat takes away from the scares, but they are still pretty good parts of the movie. 

The special effects were headed by AFX Studio and its owner, David Leroy Anderson. It took a team of around 60 sculptors, painters, drawers, and other roles to help make the enormous amount of prosthetics and costumes for this movie, a feat that may never be achieved to that degree ever again. 

“The Cabin in the Woods” is a fairly good movie overall, with only a few flaws in it regarding the ending of the movie, which leaves a lot to be desired, and the last 30 minutes of the movie can be seen as pretty fast-paced and packed with gore, which I didn’t mind at all, but other viewers may find it to be not ideal. 

Despite the few flaws in the movie, it is a pretty comedic satire on the annoying and classic tropes of the horror genre and is very good at making fun of the very movie it is trying to make and is a new horror classic to watch.