The Cabining

Director - Steve Kopera (Rommates)
Starring - Mike Kopera (Heavy Metal Superstar), Bo Keister (The Hillbilly Horror Show), and Angela Relucio (The Blood Let)
Release Date - 2014
Genre - Horror/Comedy
Tagline - "Deadlines are killer"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     I have seen so many slashers in my short life from several decades and most of them take the serious route.  Sure, we have seen several slasher comedies over the years but not nearly as many as as we do the more serious slashers.  However, recent years has saw the rise in horror comedies which affect all the horror sub-genres.  I have seen several slasher comedies over the last year and plenty more are still on the horizon.  I recently came across the Facebook page for the film The Cabining.  The film looked like a great slasher comedy so I reached out to the Facebook page and they were nice enough to send me a review copy.  Thanks for hooking me up!

     The film follows two aspiring screenwriters who are working on a slasher script to have finished by their deadline.  However, they are told the script sucks and have to start over from scratch.  They exhaust all their resources and decide to head out to a exclusive resource with other artists, musicians, and writers to finish their script.  Once there, they meet a writer, an indie musician, and other artists.  The two find women that they start to fall for and try to impress them but things turn dark for everyone there when people start to turn up dead.  They start to suspect a recluse artist who traps animals but soon true intentions are shown and one of them is left to fight for his life.

     Slashers are a dime a dozen.  They always have and always will.  However, very few go off the beaten path to set them apart from all the others.  Most use the same story following someone that was wronged who then puts on a random mask and kills those that wronged them.  Personally, I love this cliched and tired story but after watching dozens of films following this same story I sometimes want to switch it up and see something a little different.  The Cabining is a slasher that thinks outside the box that gives the viewer a fun and original slasher.  The acting in this film is top notch by the entire cast.  The supporting cast is great and makes the film flow so easily.  The two leads, Mike Kopera and Bo Keister, was perfectly cast in roles I feel they were made for.  The cast was perfect and I could not imagine anyone else in these roles.  The story for this one is not your typical slasher story.  In fact, for a slasher it is the most detailed and well written slasher that I have probably ever seen.  The horror is watered down and the comedy rules the film.  That is fine because the humor is funny and the horror makes the scenes more colorful.  Finally, the film lacks on screen kills but if you picked up that this is a comedy first and a horror film second then you will realize that the point of this film is to make the viewer laugh instead of shower them in gore.  However, the special effects are phenomenal.  The film has some impressive practical effects that brings back that slasher vibe.  Overall, The Cabining is a complex slasher for the thinking horror fan.  If you are looking for a gore-drenched slasher with a weak story and flat characters then look somewhere else because The Cabining is much more than that!