The Cabin is a 2018 horror film about a young couple who are terrorised by a sadistic and persistent killer during their remote cabin getaway.
There is something to be learned from staying in an isolated cabins without mobile phone reception, 4G data and the availability to escape easily; just don’t do it. However, it makes for the perfect set-up in many horror films such as the classic The Evil Dead, and gives the perfect excuse for all characters to be murdered. But the truth is, it’s been done a million times before and in order to offer horror audiences something thrilling, it needs to have something different about it. Swedish horror film The Cabin completely disregards this fact, and although starts strong, falters far too quickly.
Rose, played by Caitlin Crommett and Harry, played by Christopher Lee Page, are escaping to the wild with a little remote get-away to Harry’s family cabin. Whilst at the cabin the pair plan on trying to rekindle their broken relationship and make amends for their past mistakes. They soon encounter a young and hostile man who doesn’t seem like the friendly neighbour they would have expected. Soon enough they realise that his motive isn’t to bake cookies and welcome them to the neighbourhood, and their fight for survival begins.
The opening sequence for The Cabin is disturbing, brutal and gives the audience the presumption that they are entering into a relentless film that will hold nothing back and shock the viewers. Opening strongly is always a sure way to captivate the audience, which scriptwriter Erik Kammerland and director Johan Bodell clearly understood when putting together this film. But, they failed to do one thing with The Cabin and that’s follow up the opening sequence with anything nearly as horrific, therefore leaving us feeling let down by everything that comes to follow. In the opening we see the couple bickering while travelling and simultaneously watching the young man break into the real neighbour’s home, tie him up and begin to dismember his body piece by piece with the use of various tools, culminating in a chainsaw. There’s a tonne of bloodshed, gore and a kitchen that holds resemblance to Leatherface’s meat room in Texas Chainsaw Massacre…
So where did it go wrong? Afterwards we’re presented with two main characters that truly lack any substance of any kind. Rose could be the most awful girlfriend to ever exist, she is obnoxious, rude and unnecessarily nasty to her boyfriend for no reason whatsoever. From the moment she opens her mouth, we’re already pining for when she’s slaughtered by the murderer, which really isn’t how we should feel towards one of our protagonists. Her boyfriend Harry isn’t quite as despicable, but he doesn’t give us much either; he is essentially just lame and quite tedious, which is maybe why Rose detests him so much. It’s hard to feel any sorrow for the couple when they’re being terrorised by the madman, which means we’re on the wrong side and rooting for the wrong person.
Not only are the characters not easy to like, but the storyline after opening so strongly is bleak and boring. Much like our characters, there is nothing of substance that is given to us; the cat and mouse game that ensues isn’t particularly dramatic and tension doesn’t seem to lurk anywhere as every move is predictable from a thousand yards away. Nothing happens at all after the first 15 minutes, which means we have approximately another 75 minutes of waiting patiently to see if the main characters will be murdered by our also quite monotonous killer.
This film also features fake smoking and real smoking; the killer is confident with a cigarette in his hand and mouth and then there’s Rose who cannot hold a cigarette without stumbling and also does not know how to inhale. Now this is something that I hate a lot in films, you either smoke the cigarette or you don’t, there shouldn’t be an in between.
Worse horror movies do exist, and it would be a little harsh to say The Cabin is awful. What The Cabin is though is dull, and offers nothing of any substance to the audience. Maybe the next film made will have something of interest.