At some point in a filmmaker’s career, if he’s had enough exposure and been successful at the box office, people will start referring to their films as carrying his or her “stamp”. A stamp is that collection of qualities that let you know that the film in question has been crafted by a certain brain. For example, disarmingly natural but effective thrillers with clever cinematic tricks to draw the audience in? That’s what you’d call a Hitchcock. Heavily stylised but insightful think-pieces that comment on man’s position in a deteriorating society? Kubrick’s in the house.

Of course it’s not always a good thing. Messily executed mish-mash of explosions and shallow, unlikable characters? Good evening, Michael Bay. Pretentious, unwatchable guff that genuinely makes you hate cinema a bit? M. Night Shyamalan at your service. The reason I bring this up is because, for all the right reasons, Cabin In The Woods has got Joss Whedon written all over it.

For those of you unfamiliar with the man, Joss Whedon is, without hint of exaggeration, something of a living deity amongst what you might call “The Geek Fraternity”. He had early mainstream success as the writer of the original Toy Story movie and is also helming this summer’s superhero extravaganza, The Avengers. However his real ascension came in 1996 when he resurrected his very first project, modestly successful horror-comedy Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and turned it into arguably one of the most influential TV series of all time. Buffy led to a revolution in feminism on television (Charmed, Dark Angel, Alias and many more owe a huge debt to Whedon and his creation) and also birthed a trend of subverting audience expectations. It is this latter philosophy around which Cabin In The Woods bases its entire M.O.

Co-written by Whedon and Cloverfield writer/former Buffy scribe Drew Goddard (who also directs), Cabin In The Woods tells the story of 5 high-schoolers who take a trip out to a remote log cabin and are subsequently attacked by something hideous. If you’ve been paying attention for the last…say, 30 years of cinema, you may have heard that one before, but there’s much, much more to it than that. Ever watched a horror film and shouted “Why would you do that?” at the seemingly idiotic characters on-screen? Well Cabin In The Woods attempts to answer that question, and it succeeds complete.

Like any good deconstruction, the film sets up a hatful of clichés to knock down, beginning with the characters themselves. You have the jock (Chris Hemsworth), the prom-queen (Anna Hutchinson), the stoner (Fran Kranz), the nice-guy (Jesse Williams) and the shy-girl (Kristen Connelly). Thrown in for good measure, you also have the creepy remote gas station owner, and some zombies.

Beyond that, however, it’s quite difficult to describe the story in much greater detail without spoiling the entire experience. Needless to say, the group find themselves in the traditional life-threatening situation, but the focus is on the “Why” of it all. Why, when faced with an “us or them” survival situation, why do the kids decide to split up? Why is it that having sex in this situation almost always leads to disaster? The answers provided here are clever, well-executed and, at times, laugh out loud funny.

The main ensemble cast play up to every ridiculous decision put their way and are all endearing enough to miss them when they get inevitably picked off, but the real kudos must go to what I will have to call, in order to avoid spoilers, the “support ensemble”. Two gentlemen, whose roles can’t really be discussed here, but who are played to perfection by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, make superb workaday counterpoints to the madness unfolding around them, and are brilliantly supported by others including former Buffy/Angel alumni Amy Acker and Tom Lenk.

Post-modern deconstructions are often a risky business. There’s always the chance that it will come off a little too “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” and end up alienating the audience with smugness. Cabin In The Woods steers expertly around this by injecting just the right balance of humour, gore and smart observation into what could be considered the ultimate clapped-out genre. There are so many brilliant little touches in this film that it warrants going back and watching cookie-cutter stuff like the Urban Legend and Wrong Turn series just to see if the answers posed by Whedon and Goddard match up across the genre. Not only that, but towards its conclusion the film almost turns to the audience and says “Hey you! Yes you, you sick bastards, why do you even get pleasure out of watching this kind of suffering, fictitious though it may be? Why do we as a society seem to get off on this?”

In short, this does for the “monsters in the woods” genre what Scream did for “murderer in the house”, and then some. But where that saga was more of a critique of a well worn story, this is both dissection and glorious homage. In a very real way it’s the spiritual successor to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series and perhaps the most fun you’ll have at the cinema all year.

Overall Verdict: At once an acutely observed essay on cinematic conventions and a love-letter to pure gore-filled enjoyment. Cabin In The Woods is nothing short of a satirical masterpiece, expertly combining comedy, insight and thrills into an immensely enjoyable and sometimes mind-blowing sideways look at the modern horror film. Think you know the story? Watch this film. Think again.

Reviewer: Alex Hall