I didn’t go for this movie. Sorry, but for Rotten Tomatoes to give this movie a 93% approval rating only shows how flawed that site is for judging “fanboy” movies. [Note: This will include some very vague spoilers. I really doubt anyone hasn’t seen this movie that plans on seeing it, but I figure I’d throw that out there just in case…Although to me the ending might work better if you just read it instead of actually see how poorly handled it is in the context of the movie.]
What Works: Okay, so this movie promised to rewrite the rules for a typical “Cabin in the Woods” style, rural horror movie, and it definitely tweaked them in a way that is probably more cerebral and satisfying than anything in the Scream franchise. Also, I enjoyed the always-reliable Richard Jenkins as one of the “people behind it all” and he has a good chemistry with Bradley Whitford in their scenes. And the first two thirds (where you don’t know exactly where it’s going) are much more satisfying than the ending. I wish I could call out more that I liked from this clearly ambitious movie, but the truth is…I got what it was going for, but never found myself really enjoying it.
What Didn’t Work: This thing is self-congratulatory as hell and a bit less clever than it thinks it is. Plus, it might work on a mental, let’s-tweak-the-formula-for-this-type-of-movie way but it doesn’t deliver at all on a visceral horror level, crapping out in a fit of video game style violence more than anything with a shred of suspense (tell me the last ten minutes don’t look like something out of a Playstation game commercial). Plus, I can’t say any of the core five “young victim” performances really brought forth anything memorable and Fran Kranz (as the stoner idiot) is extremely annoying, as he was in the TV show Dollhouse. And the ending that a lot of people have praised was, for me, a total miscarriage. Even if it’s a critique of how selfish youth is, big whoop, but I suspect it’s less about that than saying some really nasty things about where the writers feel the planet deserves to wind up. Who wants to watch a movie that says the Earth (essentially) deserves to end and the young characters won’t lift a finger to stop it? I’m sure some very angry young men would but what’s in it for the non-cult out there wanting to watch a horror movie without the smirk?
What I Would Have Done Differently: Who knows? By now we have seen so many “horror” movies where the violence is in quote marks, and the characters are practically winking at us as they die, maybe it would be smarter to stop skewering old horror conventions and actually write some new ones. What–if anything–genuinely scares young people today in an unironic, unfiltered way? Whoever can answer that question will probably rule the box office for years to come…much more than this film’s meager opening weekend gross and poor word of mouth.