Right now, the Buffy creator is the hottest property in cinema with the acclaimed The Cabin in the Woods and soon-to-open superhero movie Avengers Assemble. And then it`s on to ShakespeareJust one top-five, praised-to-the-rafters movie in the space of a year would be the pinnacle of most film-makers` careers. Two in a fortnight is surely beyond the fantasies of anyone whose name does not include the words `Steven` and `Spielberg`. And yet it is precisely this exalted position in which the jolly, unassuming 47-year-old Joss Whedon now finds himself.Earlier this month, the man best known as the creator of the beloved cult TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer dazzled critics and audiences with The Cabin in the Woods (which he co-wrote with the movie`s director, Drew Goddard). Putting a subversive spin on multiple manifestations of the horror genre, from slasher to zombie to monster movie, it has been widely celebrated for a witty postmodernism not seen since Scream.Admirers of Whedon will know that playfulness is the lifeblood of his work: Welcome to the Hellmouth, the 1997 debut episode of Buffy, featured a memorable scene in which an apparently vulnerable high-school girl, who seems about to be ravished by her date, sprouts a pair of fangs and leaves him somewhat the worse for wear.As well as indulging this taste for upending our expectations, The Cabin in the Woods also represents a chance for Whedon to rescue the horror genre from the clutches of torture-porn such as Saw and Hostel. `A really, really well-crafted horror movie can be an end in itself,` he says. `It`s just that my feeling has been lately that a lot of horror movies have made a horrible death an end in itself, instead of the actual film, the horror experience.` That`s Whedon all over. He doesn`t just scare: he cares.The Cabin in the Woods, shot in 2009 but shelved when its studio, MGM, went bankrupt, is still playing to sell-out audiences here and in the US, even as Avengers Assemble is poised to jo ...
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