Cotterpin, may I ask a question? What , in your opinion, are the dumb ideas in the film?  I think the film is a clever celebration of all sorts of horror films, it includes the good ideas and the dumb ones that accompanied those films.

Wow.

Well, the movie doesn't bother me, but seriously well said. You raise a lot of good points quite well.

I love this forum.

I just rewatched it last night and I still love the hell out of it, but there are valid criticisms one can bring up.

The core problem is that it's not at all successful as a horror movie, until maybe the last 20 minutes (which really make the movie in my opinion). Of all the monsters they could go with for the "movie within the movie" section, zombies just seem like such a lame copout. If you seriously just replaced them with werewolves, or something cooler, I think the movie immediately gets stronger and works better in its genre. Without that, much of the movie ends up feeling like a Spoof movie, there's a degree of sincerity missing.

I think an interesting comparison point would be Scream (and this is a movie I'd really like to see a DIF on at some point), because that film largely does all the same genre deconstruction of Cabin in the Woods, but it's still a very effective horror film with some really harrowing and intense sequences. It's both an excellent slasher movie, and an excellent meta-commentary on slashers, whereas I think Cabin nails the commentary, but doesn't really work on a thriller level. Scream also did all this almost 20 years ago, so it's funny to see Cabin in the Woods talked about like some revolutionary thing that's never been tried before.

That being said, I think the writing in Cabin is outstanding, I think all the character setups, interactions, and payoffs are excellent, and I find it very rewatchable (its also EXACTLY 90 minutes long, which is nice).

I love how Whedon & Goddard wrote the screenplay. Three days in a split level trading pages back and forth.