Cabin in the Woods Is Scary Good

Critics are applauding Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods for its delectable mixture of horror and humor. From a familiar premise—five college students alone in the forest—come all kinds of surprises.

• "A fiendishly clever brand of meta-level genius propels The Cabin in the Woods," writes Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post. It's "a pulpy, deceivingly insightful send-up of horror movies that elicits just as many knowing chuckles as horrified gasps."

• In Reason, Kurt Loder calls the movie "pretty brilliant," featuring a "wonderfully inventive meta-story" that "trashes the rules of the teen fright flick."
• "By turning splatter formula on its empty head, Cabin shows you can unleash a fire-breathing horror film without leaving your brain or your heart on the killing floor," writes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone.
• But in the Los Angeles Times, Betsy Sharkey offers a caveat: "It's as if the filmmakers got so wrapped up in the satire they forgot to include the intense sensation of rising dread that creates all the thrills and chills that are part of the attraction."

(More Joss Whedon stories.)