Cabin In The Woods (2012).

**SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS**

It's fun (probably more fun if a series of idiots aren't kicking the back of your seat...grrrrrr) but it could have been so much better.

For starters the premise is slightly hamstrung by the inability of the film makers to secure rights to the genuine horror film monsters.

If this was properly negotiated it could have been the Roger Rabbit of horror films.

Instead you have a pseudo-Pinhead etc and it feels a bit cheap and a bit like the creatures in Thir13en Ghosts (2001). As he is a mostly British Cinema creation wouldn't Pinhead have been better employed in the British sector?

The monster mayhem is fun but as hardly any of them resemble real movie monsters it just doesn't work with the story.

Secondly the horror inflicted on the victims is too cartoonish.

If it looked and felt realistic the reveal would have been much more effective and the behind the scenes comedy would have been more effective in contrast.

Another problem is the film is playing with cinematic horror tropes but we get no hint that horror cinema is actually playing a part in the story itself.

It would have been better if it was a condition of what was really going on that the events be viewed by many witnesses.

So the behind the scenes people could cast the victims so they have a similar build to film actors and map the actors faces onto the victims bodies.

That way all horror films would be snuff movies.

Finally why have the Director played by anyone other than Jamie Lee Curtis?

Indeed there should have been portraits of previous Directors including Fay Wray, Janet Leigh etc.