“The Cabin in the Woods” is a rare movie, falling in line with self-aware films like “Shaun of the Dead,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “The Fifth Element”; films that simultaneously parody, pay homage to and act as stunning examples of their genres.

The genre that “Cabin” tackles is horror. It takes the well-known tropes and ideas of the genre and turns them around: both making fun of, making use of and twisting them inside out. The story follows five college students who go out to spend the weekend at a cabin in the woods. What they don’t know is that the entire trip is being observed and manipulated by a mysterious group of controllers. And that’s all I’m going to reveal of the plot.

“Cabin” is built on taking the audience’s preconceptions and thoroughly blending them with the unexpected. The tagline on the posters say it perfectly, “You think you know the story.”

This is one of the few movies that is much better to go into completely blind. Don’t let anyone tell you anything about what happens.

“Cabin” marks the directorial debut for Drew Goddard, who started his career writing episodes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” for Joss Whedon, who produced and co-wrote “Cabin” with Goddard. Whedon, who also created “Firefly” and “Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” is famous for his rapier wit dialogue. He and Goddard heap it into the movie without restraint, often putting some of the best lines in some of the most inappropriate moments, which only makes them better. I haven’t laughed out loud at a movie this much in some time.

But just because “Cabin” has a healthy dose of verbal humor does not mean that it isn’t a serious horror movie. Once the movie gains momentum it does not stop delivering, and the setup makes even predictable events surprising, which combined with Whedon’s propensity to defy what one is “supposed” to do, leads to an extremely engaging cinematic experience.

“On another level it’s a serious critique of what we love and what we don’t about horror movies. I love being scared. I love that mixture of thrill, of horror, that objectification of wanting definitely for the people to be alright but at the same time hoping they’ll go somewhere dark and face something awful. The things that I don’t like are kids acting like idiots, the devolution of the horror movie into torture porn and into a long series of sadistic comeuppances. Drew [Goddard] and I both felt that the pendulum had swung a little too far in that direction.” – Joss Whedon co-writer and co-producer of “Cabin in the Woods”