Butler's Cinema Scene

I’ve never been a big fan of horror movies. Too many cliches, too many worn-out tropes.

And at this late stage it’s almost impossible to come up with an idea so new, so shocking that it grabs audiences the way, say, “The Exorcist” did nearly 40 years ago. It seems like we’ve seen it all.

When we reach this stage of saturation, what’s needed is a movie that delivers the familiar in an entirely different way.  Which is where “Cabin in the Woods” comes in.

Written by geek god Joss Whedon and his colleague Drew Goddard (a producer on TV’s “Lost” and “Alias” and a screenwriter of “Cloverfield”) and directed by Goddard (it’s his first feature credit in that capacity), “Cabin…” cleverly turns the usual horror flick cliches inside out, much in the same way that Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead 2” did back in the day.

You’ve got a quintet of typical college students gearing up for a big weekend in the country.

The buff jock Curt (Chris Hemsworth of “Thor” fame) has a cousin who has recently purchased an old cabin deep in the woods. He recruits his squeeze Dana (Kristen Connolly), her virginal galpal Jules (Anna Hutchison), a hunky brain named Holden (Jesse Williams) and the wisecracking stoner Marty (a scene-stealing Fran Kranz) for two days of sylvan revels.

Their preparations and drive into the forest are observed by Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) and Hadley (Bradley Whitford), who are installed in a high-tech control center filled with TV monitors that allow them to eavesdrop on the partiers’ every move through literally thousands of hidden cameras and microphones.

Just what are Sitterson and Hadley up to? Our first guess is that they’re producing a reality TV show in which unsuspecting subjects are put into “horror” situations. In any case, these two button-pushers command a huge staff of helpers who bring their scenarios to life.

In this regard the film reminds of “Hunger Games” and “The Truman Show.”

Richard Jenkins (left) and Bradley Whitford

We’re further lulled into thinking that their activities are essentially harmless by the casual approach they take to the job. They make very funny observations about their horny young test subjects and run an office betting pool with a prize going to the employee who best predicts how Curt & Co. will react to the situations thrown at them.

But when a family of hillbilly zombies begin attacking and eviscerating the college kids, it quickly becomes obvious that this is no ordinary reality TV show.  In fact, Sitterson and Hadley’s work has roots in ancient superstition, in notions of human sacrifice and … well, let’s just say that before “Cabin in the Woods” is over our most fundamental notions of who we are and how the world works have been thrown into question. And at the same time it dishes great fun through the way it plays with the usual horror cliches.

For a first-time director, Goddard does a solid job — although the screenplay is so clever, amusing, and finally mind-boggling that you’d be hard pressed not to make a decent film out of it.

Haunted hit men: Michael Smiley Neil Maskell

Equally disturbing but even more artful is the Brit release “Kill List,” one of the most haunting, compelling and (at moments) repellant movies I’ve seen in years.

One of the great strengths of the screenplay by director Ben Wheatley (a veteran of British TV) and Amy Jump is that it keeps us guessing about just what kind of movie it is.

For example, the first 20 minutes appear to be a domestic drama. Jay (Neil Maskell) is a husband and father who has been out of work for eight months.

His pretty wife Shel (MyAnna Buring, one of the spelunkers in “The Descent”) is losing her patience. The bank accounts are empty. Their credit cards are being rejected. Whether the problem is depression or just laziness, she wants Jay to get off his ass.

Things come to a very ugly head when Jay’s old army buddy Gal (Michael Smiley) comes for dinner with his new girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer) and witness their host and hostess in a full scale china-smashing, food-tossing marital meltdown.

The second phase of the film reveals Jay and Gal to be an assassination team trained by the British military. Now they’re independent contractors.  Shel, we realize, has always known how her husband puts bread on the table and urges him to get back in the game.

Jay and Gal take a contract to kill several individuals whose names, photos, addresses and activities are in a dossier given them by their well-dressed but ominous employers.

The targets on this kill list include a priest, a librarian and a member of parliament.

MyAnna Buring

Our boys don’t ask questions. They just go about methodically doing their job.

Except that Jay has a tendency to go overboard. Killing the targets isn’t enough for him. He goes positively Neanderthal (especially when he realizes that one of their hits makes torture porn), much to the dismay of Gal, who finds this behavior not only unprofessional but dangerous. Let’s just say the makers of “Kill List” way outdo the head-stomping elevator scene from “Drive.”

Up to this point the film has been first a domestic drama and then a crime movie. In its last act, though, it moves into an entirely different realm.  Imagine the characters in “The Sopranos” wandering into the cult movie “The Wicker Man.”

By all rights “Kill List” should be a schizophrenic mess.  But so low-keyed  is Wheatley’s direction, so tight the writing, and so superb the performances by the principal players that we buy into every twist and turn.

Maskell and Smiley’s work is particularly splendid, capturing the give and take of two old buds who have endured some horrific experiences together and have found in each other an anchor elsewhere lacking in their lives.

Maskell brilliantly mines the psychosis roiling inside Jay, while Smiley creates in Gal a genuinely likable and sympathetic hit man.  Buring is both sexy and steely as the wife trying to support her man through trying times; Fryer is effective as the girlfriend who will play a bigger role in all this than we can guess.

I’m particularly taken with the way “Kill List” refuses to spell everything out for us.  The film is thick with suggestion, but tells us relatively little, making for an experience that is doubly unsettling.

I’m not sure how this movie does what it does, but damned if it doesn’t do it extremely well.  The last time I felt like this was watching Simon Rumley’s twisted “Red White & Blue” … and that’s a ringing endorsement.

| Robert W. Butler