The Cabin in the Woods 2012

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: Cabin goes beyond the parody of the Scream franchise into darker, richer territory. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Let's just say that if you like smartly twisted spins on worn-out horror cliches and if you have a strong stomach for flying body parts, put down the newspaper/laptop and go - we'll talk later. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: What the movie finally is, then, is a diversion: a reasonably smart and exceptionally well-constructed one. And nothing more. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: There is a scholarly, nerdy, completist sensibility at work here that is impressive until it becomes exhausting. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Is it scary? Not especially. But there are enough gory surprises around every bend to keep you laughing/screaming/cringing. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Zest counts for a lot, and resonance carries the day. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: This film plays with our expectations of what a horror movie is and tries to upend them, and for the most part succeeds. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Where Scream put a postmodern twist on slasher films, The Cabin In The Woods takes on the whole genre and twists even harder. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: "The Cabin in the Woods" is a fantastic poke in the eye of our horror-movie expectations. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The climactic one-two punch of special-effects chaos and meta-movie chin stroking should have the fanboys trembling with delight. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Whedon and Goddard bake their cake and eat it too. Read more

Tom Charity, CNN.com: One of the best movies of 2012 so far, in any genre. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: You needn't be a fanboy to enjoy the moment when the ride really takes off and the spectacle flowers. A scary imagination will do just fine. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: And you thought you were just headed for a weekend getaway. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: If you like nutty energy, wacky ideas, crisp dialogue and scary, bloody, gory, grotesque and twisted movies - man, are you going to have a blast this weekend. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Even when all hell breaks loose, that hell is cushioned by air quotes, with the audience buckled up for benign, heady fun. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: The idea is to set up a movie we've seen a hundred times before, and then to rearrange it into something new and deliriously satisfying. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: In order to subvert any popular form, entertainment first has to work on its own terms. Goddard and Whedon are too busy geeking out to bother with those requirements. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: All the actors do a decent job with whatever is thrown at them -- usually sharp objects. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Fans of Whedon are fond of repeating the mantra "In Joss we trust" - and with good reason. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Everything about "The Cabin in the Woods" is a delicious practical joke... Read more

Bruce Diones, New Yorker: The filmmakers are less interested in providing a slow buildup to their frights than in splattering the cliches of the form in funny, spirited ways. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: "The Cabin in the Woods" gets at the story underneath the story, and the reason behind the cliches. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: For all of its many intellectual pleasures, and smart commentary, Cabin in the Woods is a visceral roller coaster of a movie at heart. And like the best thrill rides, when it's over, you just want to get back on and go again. Read more

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

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Movies that mean to deconstruct movies seem to be made solely by and for cinema vampires, those ghost-faced geeks whose pallor is rarely challenged by exposure to the sun. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: An entire row of what they call "fanboys" at the screening I attended laughed all the way through the movie, although I failed to see anything remotely amusing. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The movie invigorates the genre, which is a rare and welcome thing. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This is not a perfect movie; it's so ragged, it's practically constructed of loose ends. But it's exciting because it ventures so far off the map. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: If it's true that you always kill the thing you love, then horror honchos Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard have taken an ax to slasher cinema in The Cabin in the Woods and chopped it up for kindling. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Quite a bit of it is great, and most of it works, and the stuff that clicks is outrageously entertaining and funny, sometimes with surprising depth. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: As Goddard and Whedon jump back and forth, the pieces snap into place; then just when you think you've got it all figured out, they throw something else at you. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: 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 more

Dana Stevens, Slate: I thoroughly enjoyed this movie's gory silliness, but I have the feeling it may be overpraised for infusing a modicum of wit into a genre that usually demonstrates so little. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Mind blown, hair on fire. Seeing "The Cabin in the Woods" set a new personal benchmark for fiendishly creative takes on genre entertainment. Read more

Kevin C. Johnson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: It's outrageous but also great fun. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: A horror movie embedded in a conspiracy flick embedded in another horror movie-the most inventive cabin-in-the-woods picture since The Evil Dead and the canniest genre deconstruction since Scream. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Cabin is a meta-horror-comedy mash-up that, at least for two-thirds of its running time, holds together smartly. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: The filmmakers have a real love for the horror genre and its tropes and archetypes, and while much of what goes on here will have special resonance for fellow buffs, you don't have to be a scholar of spooky movies to appreciate how the story's being told. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: It's ... remarkable to see a mainstream movie touch on so many fascinating, powerful ideas without losing sight of its prime directive: to scare the socks off its audience. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: It works thrillingly for audiences, especially the pointy-headed kind who have been trained to predict the outcomes of every week's slasher. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: To say that TheCabin in the Woods isn't your average horror movie is like observing that King Kong isn't your average ape. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Though there are plot holes in the elaborately concocted scenarios, The Cabin in the Woods gets points for the twists and turns that come along with its sly wickedness. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Not since Scream has a horror movie subverted the expectations that accompany the genre to such wicked effect as The Cabin in the Woods. Read more

Mark Olsen, Village Voice: More than anything else, Cabin feels like the endgame of so-called fanboy culture in the way in which it is first and foremost about itself, interested only in a fundamental adherence to rules of its own devising and fenced off from the world at large. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A pulpy, deceivingly insightful send-up of horror movies that elicits just as many knowing chuckles as horrified gasps. Read more

Christopher Kelly, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: The setup is intriguing but the balance feels off. Goddard and Whedon overplay the winking postmodernism. Read more