The plot of the film resembles a banal horror: a group of five friends decide to go to the forest for the weekend. It is not difficult to guess that there are set fire to pre-prepared traps and dangers, only here all the heroes are also under observation … The plot develops quite normally and primitively. The adventure begins when the guys go down to the basement and find the diary of a little girl who lived in the last century, with a spell in Latin. They read it without thinking about the consequences. Very in vain…
After some time, a drunk couple, Jules and Kurt, decide to retire in the forest, but, alas, at the most inopportune moment they are attacked by zombies who have resurrected because of the diary mentioned earlier. Jules is brutally killed, and Kurt manages to escape. Running to the hut, he tells his friends about everything. They are divided into rooms, which are sharply locked. A smoky Marty accidentally hits a lamp and it shatters. At that moment, he finds a cord inside it and realizes that it is a camera. They are watched and controlled. A zombie attacks Marty from the window, stabs him in the back and drags him to the grave. At this time, the remaining three, Jock-Kurt, Virgin-Dana and Egghead-Holden, hardly escape from the hut. They get into the van and try to drive away, but the rocks in the tunnel make them stop.
Wanting to somehow get out, they send Kurt on a motorcycle to the other side of the cliff. Having accelerated, he managed to take off well, but he hit an invisible wall with force and died. Holden and Dana decide to drive through the woods in a van, but a zombie creeps up from behind and stabs Holden’s throat. The car flies into the lake. Dana miraculously got out, but a zombie with a trap was waiting for her on the shore. He beat her for a long time and tortured her. At this time, a small party is held in the command center of the scientists who monitored what is happening in honor of the completion of the operation. But later they realize with horror that this “game” has not yet come to an end. Dana comes to the aid of Marty, who seemed to be dead all this time. Together they run into the hatch, climb into a special elevator and go down to the same command center. There, the guards try to kill them, but they manage to release a huge number of specially trained creatures: werewolves, ghosts, maniacs, clowns, cannibals. Going down, they meet a woman who tells them the whole essence of the hut. All this was done for sacrifices to please the gods. A little zombie girl helps kill this woman. Dana and Marty are left badly injured and realize that they won’t live anyway. Finally, they are tightened with a jamb.
I would like to think that the point of the film The Cabin in the Woods is to make fun of clichés and references to typical horror films. There are also religious themes. Young people, according to a thousand-year tradition, must be sacrificed to the deities, otherwise it will all lead to the end of the world. Even in the same diary, a religious girl is mentioned who wants to comprehend pain in order to “purify her faith.” Religious motifs add even more horror to the film, especially when you find out that the father of the family killed and maimed his children in his own basement. It is also worth noting that Marty was the only one of all who asked elementary questions and thought about the fact that they were led by puppeteers. Scientists have a theory that it was Marty’s favorite marijuana that saved him from those gases that were sprayed throughout the house. These gases dulled the sense of self-preservation and forced the heroes to think recklessly. So in the film, it is he who causes at least a drop of respect for not succumbing to the system and being able to think outside the box (even if drugs helped him in this).
The meaning of the ending is just as clear and simple. Friends doomed to death spend the last minutes of their lives together. There is a variant of an alternative ending, where Dana kills her friend, having learned that there must be at least 4 dead (a girl, a jock, a scientist and a jester die, and a virgin can live). The world is saved, the gods are happy, and Dana smokes weed with the awareness of doom and loneliness. Something about this ending is very pessimistic. The official version with a huge hand coming out of the ground looks much cooler.
In general, the film leaves a good impression. Pleases atypical plot and characters. With confidence, the film can be recommended for viewing.
