There are times when a film’s title can fill you with eager anticipation; Insidious, Hellraiser and Evil Dead are all deeply suggestive in giving an indication of what is to come. There are also times when a title can have the opposite effect, promising only disappointment; Poseidon Rex for example. So when a film emerges from an imagination that settled on The Cabin it is impossible not to hear the slight ringing of an alarm bell.
Everyone will have their favourite cabin in the woods film whether it is Evil Dead or, well, The Cabin In The Woods. It is a template so well used by filmmakers that it is strange to think that the title The Cabin hadn’t been used before; except it had, on several occasions. Even the original title of Bloodline was not so original. Anyway, all that aside the filmmakers have gone to some lengths to distinguish their film from the rest.
Brett (Matt Thompson who also directs) is a young man about to enter the priesthood but is haunted by his family’s past. At some point in history one of his ancestors angered an ancient native tribe and a curse has been placed on his family. Only by wearing a powerful amulet can the afflicted family member prevent bad things from happening. For what appears to be a religious stag weekend he and four friends (one of which is an ex-girlfriend who has every intention of testing his commitment to the church) head to Brett’s family’s cabin for some partying and pretty soon those bad things do inevitably begin to happen.
The problem in trying to produce a film that tries hard not to reference all those illustrious predecessors is that you can then miss all the things that make those films so interesting and revered. The Cabin attempts to be more considered in its horror, slowly building the terror through curious encounters and mysterious events but lacks any real conviction and what remains is a film that is just grimly tedious.
There is no dramatic punch or moment of either real fear or black humour that are such appealing aspects of the films mentioned above. The characters are bland and without exception irritatingly smug, the deaths are routine and the evil when it is finally revealed is a poor imagining of so many previously seen incarnations.
OVERALL SUMMARY
As is often said there are only so many stories to choose from and it is easy to see why an isolated house in the woods is such an attractive one to filmmakers. There is nothing wrong with revisiting the premise time and again, but it is essential that there is something new, some variation on a theme to attract and entice audiences and sadly there is nothing of that in The Cabin.
