By Tim Angerame

We film critics have a term that we like to call suspension of disbelief. Suspension of disbelief is how much of a movie that you are willing to swallow before you deem it completely ridiculous. If you are planning on seeing The Cabin in the Woods, you should probably make sure you have a pretty freaking high suspension of disbelief.
My. Dear. God. Where the heck do I begin with this movie? Well let me begin by saying that it just doesn’t take itself seriously. The first half of the movie is like The Evil Dead meets The Truman Show, and the second half is like a drug fueled nightmare.
Ok, so here’s the premise. There is this big research lab full of supernatural scientists, most notably the dad from Six Feet Under, a brunette with a ponytail and the Pat Sajak-resembling villain from Billy Madison, who basically round up good looking co-eds to go to this cabin filled with cameras, release a few monsters and basically play a twisted real-life version of the 1992 video game Night Trap.

Now I say that this movie really doesn’t take itself that seriously, and one reason is that the comedic relief comes from the antagonistic researchers. They place bets on which monster gets picked, stare diligently at the monitors when there’s a chance the co-eds will have sex (they do), and drink and party when they think everyone is dead. Heck, the first scene in the movie is baldy and Pat Sajak talking about their women problems before the big red THE CABIN IN THE WOODS title flashes up the whole screen.
Now onto the kids themselves. As you’ve probably guessed, we have all the stereotypes I mentioned in my review of Shark Night 3D, with a few minor differences. (We only have two sexy girls and a half-black guy!)
At one point, the academic, the jock, the provocative blonde, the stoner and, of course, the most classic horror movie stereotype, the virgin, get led into this cellar filled with tchotchkes. Later in the movie, it’s revealed that whatever trinket they play with the most picks what monsters come after them. They read some Latin from a pagan girl’s diary from 1902, so crazy redneck zombies it is. Oh yeah, how did this government research facility get all these monsters, goblins, and ghouls? I have no idea. This movie’s plausibility went out the window long, long ago.
But the part that really freaked me out was in the second half of the movie, the VIRGIN and the stoner defend themselves from the research lab’s monsters. I won’t give away everything that results from this but you do see a female researcher blowing her brains out and a guy getting impaled by a frickin’ unicorn. Yeah. That happens.
One thing that bothered me in this movie (excluding the movie itself), is that usually at the end of a horror movie, they usually let one or two people survive. Well, spoiler alert, but EVERYONE DIES! And when I say everyone, I mean the ENTIRE WORLD. I won’t say how, (you probably won’t understand it anyway) but this movie somehow leads to the apocalypse. In other words, I thought the ending was kind of a downer.
The Cabin in the Woods just doesn’t make any sense. When I left the theater room, I stood still and stared down the hallway of the Arlington Theater trying to comprehend what I just saw. I wasn’t sure whether this was supposed to be a horror movie or an extremely elaborate parody comedy.
That doesn’t mean I wasn’t entertained. I felt a little violated, but I was entertained. Was it scary? Yes. Was it a bizarre mind freak? Without question. Was it stupid? Very. Was I careful to not exceed my suspension of disbelief? Absolutely not. Did I like it? Yes. Yes I did.