The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Leave it to Joss Whedon, creator of the self-aware “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” film and TV series, to turn the horror genre on its bloody head, with a film inside a film that blasts apart the decades-old pattern of character types, predestined deaths, third-act disasters, and tired climaxes that can be graphed to the last “gotch’ya.” With “The Cabin in the Woods,” Whedon and co-screenwriter Drew Goddard (who directed) show us the masters behind the genre movie curtain as a subterranean set of directors, writers, and technicians punching buttons and giving orders to ensure that every horror cliché appears. That in itself provides more than half the laughs. Who knew every dumb college-age dope move in, say, “Friday the 13^th” was so essential? Is it scary? No. Should it be? Maybe. The skewering of other’s attempts at scary more than makes up for any lack of fright. Chris Hemsworth -– before “Thor” -- leads the college-age side as the “jock,” while Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins lead the control side, riffing as if they are in a serious Aaron Sorkin production by Tarantino. Beware Merman! B+