"Cabin in the Woods": reviews, plot, actors

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In 2012, a fantastic thriller with the participation of Chris Hemsworth "The Cabin in the Woods" was released worldwide. The picture received good reviews, which is surprising, because the plot looks absolutely ridiculous and in places unlikely. But still, the young film crew managed to conquer both critics and viewers. What is the secret of this movie?

The creators of the picture

The Cabin in the Woods thriller was directed by Drew Goddard and received positive reviews in all countries where the film was shown. He also wrote the script for the horror movie.

Drew is known in Hollywood as the scriptwriter for the movie hits "Monster" and "Lost". Having earned a good reputation on these projects, in 2012 the director received a green light from the film company Lionsgate to shoot his own film.

The Cabin in the Woods horror film was produced by Joss Whedon, who in 2012 was simultaneously involved in the wide release of the first part of The Avengers.

Peter Deming was invited as a cameraman on the set, inwhose arsenal includes work on the cult films Scream 2, Scream 3, Scream 4, as well as Mulholland Drive and The Jacket.

The music for the film was written by composer David Julian, who worked on the soundtrack to the thriller The Prestige by Christopher Nolan.

Storyline

The Cabin in the Woods is a new interpretation of the classic horror story. The film starts predictably as five college kids go to a country house for a fun weekend.

Everyone they meet along the way hints that the students shouldn't have gone to the sinister mansion. But they do not listen to anyone and still arrive at their destination. The viewer begins to yawn a little, anticipating the "hackneyed" and "worn out" clichés found in any horror film, but then something incomprehensible begins to happen on the screen.

Suddenly it turns out that in the basement of the house where the friends are staying, there is a hidden laboratory, whose employees are seriously preparing for some kind of special operation. They begin to experiment on students: set zombies on them, cut off all escape routes and coolly watch the death of the main characters.

And now, when it seems that almost all the victims have died, the laboratory receives a call from the "boss" and it turns out that two still survived - the drug addict Marty and the young girl Dana. They break into the laboratory, miraculously destroy the guards, get to the location of the director of the whole spectacle. At this stage, it turns out that the death of their friends is the highest craft, a kind of sacrifice.the ancient gods. But since the guys thwarted the director's plan and survived, the angry gods will now rise and destroy the world.

Inspired by the success of the first part of the horror film, Lionsgate tried to release a sequel to the film, saving on the cast and budget, but taking as a basis the plot of ancient gods and demons requiring sacrifice. However, The Cabin in the Woods: A New Chapter failed miserably at the box office and received extremely negative reviews.

Kristen Connolly as Dana Polk

Kristen Connolly is a young American television star. She began acting in TV series and low-budget films in the early 2000s, playing bit parts.

In 2012, Connolly got the lead role in the horror film The Cabin in the Woods. Her heroine - Dana Polk - is the only girl who survived after all the monstrous experiments with all kinds of attacks by monsters and zombies.

Participation in a commercially successful project had a positive impact on the career of an actress. In 2013, she landed a role in the thriller series House of Cards starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright.

In 2014, Connolly and Adrien Brody starred in the biopic Houdini.

Chris Hemsworth as Kurt Vaughan

Chris Hemsworth is by far the main star of The Cabin in the Woods. It was participation in this project that subsequently opened the doors of the largest film studios in America to Hemsworth.

Hemsworth's hero - Kurt Vaughan - the initiator of the trip of fivefriends in a country house. Unfortunately, the hero dies almost in the middle of the film, trying to escape from the advancing zombies.

Chris Hemsworth became world famous for his role as the god of thunder and lightning Thor in a series of films produced by Marvel Studios. Filming in The Avengers and other films based on popular comics enriched the actor. The fee for participation in Avengers: Infinity War, for example, amounted to 5.4 million dollars.

Anna Hutchison as Jules Lowden

Actress Anna Hutchison in Drew Goddard's sci-fi thriller plays Kurt's girlfriend Jules Lowden. On-screen heroine Hutchison is destroyed by evil spirits in the first 30 minutes of the film. But even such a short appearance in the popular horror film pushed the career of the performer to development.

Immediately after filming "The Cabin in the Woods", the girl was invited to play the lead role in the series "Spartacus: War of the Damned", where she played the role of a Roman woman who became the protagonist's mistress.

Other role players

The most colorful character in The Cabin in the Woods is Marty Mikalski, a student who dabbles in marijuana and makes sharp jokes throughout the film.

Thanks to his addiction to drugs, the guy turned out to be unpredictable and invulnerable to all kinds of experiments. It was Marty who turned the tide of the plot, helped Dana survive and destroy all the "villains". The role of Mikalski was played by actor Fran Krantz, who also starred in the TV series A Doll's House.

Also in the film you cansee Jesse Williams (Grey's Anatomy), Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), Bradley Whitford (The West Wing) and Brian White (Middle Ages).

Premier and box office

So how much did the thriller Cabin in the Woods manage to earn at the box office?

Reviews about the film quickly spread in the press and on the Internet, so there was no end to those who wanted to see an intriguing horror movie. Not a dollar was spent on marketing, but the picture did gross $66,486,080 at the box office, with interest peaking in the first few weekends.

"The Cabin in the Woods" was seen in the UK, Russia, Ireland, Canada and 40 other countries. In Russia, the picture was watched by 333.6 thousand viewers who left a total of two million dollars at the box office of cinemas.

The Cabin in the Woods (2012): critical reviews

Horror as a genre is gradually becoming obsolete. But filmmakers like Drew Goddard, who have an interest in such films, are trying to innovate and cross horror films with other genres, allowing the industry to stay afloat.

Criticists were pleasantly surprised by The Cabin in the Woods. The feedback indicates that even professional reviewers did not count on the fact that in the final picture, the crippled and practically destroyed students would take and cope with hordes of monsters, as well as those who sent them, and even the director of this entire experiment.

Everyone was satisfied with the director's work for one simple reason: he managed to "refresh" the usual course of eventsunexpected twists and plot add-ons.

"Cabin in the Woods": viewer reviews

Viewers have long yearned for the good old horror films filled with a lot of surprises, when you literally jump on the spot from fright and surprise. They found all this in the creation of Drew Goddard, plus they had the opportunity to admire the brutal Chris Hemsworth, which eventually gave a good profit at the box office.

But the continuation of the horror - "The Cabin in the Woods: A New Chapter" - received depressing reviews. The audience advises to avoid this picture, as it has nothing to do with the first part, neither in terms of the quality of the plot, nor in terms of the crew and cast.