Directed by: Drew Goddard
Written by: Joss Whedon
Starring: Kirsten Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchinson
1 hour and 35 minutes
We begin in a well-lit shop with a couple of guys who are walking through an office building. They’re whining about their wives and other boring stuff. Another worker comes over and warms them that the Swedes aren’t doing their job, and the two guys need to pick up the slack and not screw it up. They laugh and tell her it’s a piece of cake.
The scene shifts to a bunch of college kids getting ready for a weekend at the lake. There’s a jock, a stoner, a smart girl, a blonde, and a “normal” guy. They all pile into a van and head out to the cabin in the woods.
The two nerdy guys enter a high-security area, they seem to be working on some defense project or something very serious-looking.
The kids stop at a creepy gas station on the way, and the attendant is a rude old guy. As they continue their journey, a hawk flies by, gliding on a current of air, soaring majestically until it crashes into what looks like the wall of the Star Trek holodeck.
The students arrive at the cabin. They find a creepy painting and a one-way mirror. We pull back and see that the two nerdy guys are watching all of this on closed-circuit TV. The man from the gas station calls; he’s the “harbinger.” The guys get a laugh out of pulling his chain.
The whole complex is betting on something. They explain to the new security guard that everything is part of a system. There’s a lot more going on than it appears.
The teens find themselves in the basement of the house, and it’s full of weird objects, all of which will trigger some kind of monster attack. As they choose the deranged redneck zombie family, things start going badly for them.
It’s great how the controllers use temperature, pheromones, and gas to control the pawns in their game. Everything has to go according to the rules, which just happen to all be horror movie cliches. It’s not completely honest or real, but it has to play out in the predictable way to please the Old Gods. The movie goes up several notches when the controller’s plan goes south.
Overall, this is one of the most original horror movies ever. It plays with the tropes in the way “Scream” did long ago, but manages to do it in a new and completely unexpected way.