The Cabin in the WoodsMovie Reviews

Poster art for "The Cabin in the Woods."

The Cabin in the Woods Showtimes + Tickets

Avg. Critic Score: 72 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore^® based on all critic reviews

Information for Parents:

not for kids

Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

100

San Francisco Chronicle | Peter Hartlaub
By the time the ride is over, director Drew Goddard and co-writers Goddard and Joss Whedon will change course three or four times, nodding and winking but never losing momentum. Read full review
90

NPR | Ian Buckwalter
A horror-movie attic sale is, in essence, exactly what Cabin in the Woods is, an attempt to exorcise the genre of its formulaic possession by stuffing the movie full of its most overused and predictable elements - and then dumping them through clever skewering. Read full review
90

Movieline |
Cabin in the Woods does what "Scream" only halfway managed, which was to find something new by looking back at the familiar - and at least in Whedon's world, the geeky ones are never first on the chopping block. Read full review
88

Rolling Stone | Peter Travers
Cabin is a deliciously devious scare dance that keeps changing the steps until you lose your shit and fall helplessly into its demonic traps. Read full review
80

New York Daily News | Joe Neumaier
Not all of the twists work, but most are self-knowing enough to keep you guessing until its (literally) groundbreaking conclusion. Read full review
75

Boston Globe | Ty Burr
The movie balances nicely on the edge of meta-horror, with characters breaking free of their assigned roles (in more ways than one) and monkey-wrenching the very urban legend they're dying to get out of. Read full review
75

USA Today | Claudia Puig
Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford are particularly funny in their middle-management roles. Read full review
70

Wall Street Journal | Joe Morgenstern
The initial brilliance of the premise is eventually dulled by illogic, the whole thing proves unmanageable and the filmmakers unmanage their climactic revelation with far more zest than finesse. Still, zest counts for a lot, and resonance carries the day. Read full review
67

Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum
The movie's biggest surprise may be that the story we think we know from modern scary cinema - that horror is a fun, cosmic game, not much else - here turns out to be pretty much the whole enchilada. Read full review
50

The Hollywood Reporter |
Effects work is slick, and Goddard keeps his foot on the accelerator with help from David Julyan's suspense-building score. It's just too bad the movie is never much more than a hollow exercise in self-reflexive cleverness that's not nearly as ingenious as it seems to think. Read full review

Metacritic link View more reviews for The Cabin in the Woods on Metacritic

Information for Parents

Common Sense Media says not for kids Clever but very bloody deconstruction of horror movies.

What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that The Cabin in the Woods is a very-self aware, sometimes tongue-in-cheek horror movie (like Scream or Tucker and Dale vs. Evil). It starts out as a typical "carload of teens goes to spend the weekend in the country" scary movie, but then it adds some sinister twists. Throughout the whole thing, you can expect tons of violence, gore, and blood, though it stops short of "torture porn" (a la the Saw and Hostel movies). Language is also very strong (including "f--k," "s--t," and more), as is sexuality -- there's one topless scene, plus heavy sexual banter and behavior. One teen is a regular pot smoker, and other teens -- as well as adults -- drink beer, tequila, and more. Writer Joss Whedon has legions of devoted fans, many of them teens, but The Cabin in the Woods is really too much for any but the most mature teens.

Families can talk about what point The Cabin in the Woods is making. Is the message purely cynical and sinister, or does it have anything positive to say? Does it help to have seen a lot of horror movies in order to "get" this one?
Could the movie succeed without its extreme violence?
Is The Cabin in the Woods scary? Does it succeed as a horror movie, as well as a commentary on other horror movies?
Are any of these characters admirable in any way? Why or why not?

The good stuff

Positive messages: The Cabin in the Woods takes a very sinister, cynical view of humanity in general; the best it has to say about people that is that we have a strong will to live.
Positive role models: None of the main characters can really be considered a role model. One minor character -- a security guard -- questions what's going on, frowns upon it, and refuses to participate. Unfortunately, he doesn't affect the outcome at all.

What to watch for

Violence: The Cabin in the Woods starts out like a "normal" horror movie, with zombie attacks, blood, and gore. There's stabbing, sawing, and a kind of "steel jaws"/bear trap weapon on a chain. Viewers see severed heads, spraying blood, throat-stabbing, motorcycle crashing, and falling from heights. There's also gory painting, and terrifying imagery is read aloud from a diary. Then things get even more intense, with dozens of new monsters and dozens of quick images of various attacks -- i.e. suicide, guns and shooting, monsters eating people, and gallons of blood. It stops short of torture, however, and the violence is all intentionally over-the-top.
Sexy stuff: A teen girl is seen topless and engaging in foreplay with her boyfriend (they're interrupted). Another couple is seen kissing. A teen girl is seen in her panties, and men's naked torsos are shown. Another teen girl pretends to make out with a stuffed wolf during a game of "truth or dare." Heavy sexual innuendo and banter throughout.
Language: Language is very strong, but not constant. It includes many uses of "f--k," "s--t," "goddamn," "damn," "puss out," "boobies," "ass," "hell," "damn," "goddamn," and "oh my God."
Consumerism: Not an issue
Drinking, drugs and smoking: One of the teens is a heavy, constant pot smoker -- he even has a special bong that collapses to look like a steel coffee mug. Other teens are seen drinking beer. Grown-ups drink beer, tequila, and other alcoholic beverages at a party.

Common Sense Media An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.