Do you feel that shiver slithering up your spine? That’s because the trailer has just hit for THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, the long-anticipated ‘slasher to end all slashers’ directed by CLOVERFIELD screenwriter Drew Goddard and produced by BUFFY creator Joss Whedon. The film was shot in 2009 with a cast including Chris Hemsworth, Jesse Williams, Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, and Richard Jenkins. There’s been a lot of mystery surrounding the story and what makes this script really tick, and now with the first trailer released from Lionsgate, we get our first clue…

A group of five friends going on a quiet cabin retreat scratch the surface of something so massive and horrific that they can only begin to fathom what might possibly be going on just as time quickly runs out.

This trailer is packed with a LOT of tantalizing images, but without the context I think there’s still a lot of secrets left. If anything, it only asks more questions. How do you feel about the film? Will you be seeing it when it comes out next April on Friday the 13th? I know I will.

Richard Jenkins (The Broken) and Bradley Whitford are moving to The Cabin in the Woods. Jenkins is on board and Whitford is in final negotiations to star in the mystery-shrouded MGM/UA horror project written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, who also is directing. Whedon is producing.

Much like Cloverfield, which Goddard scripted, the Cabin story line provides a new twist on a classic scenario — in this case the young-people-stranded-in-the-woods horror trope.

“It’s really just your basic typecasting: When you need two actors to run through the woods in low-cut nighties, you immediately think of Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford,” Goddard joked. Whedon said the casting signals what kind of movie they are hoping to make. “They’re the first proof that though The Cabin in the Woods is a classic horror film, it isn’t one you’ve seen before.”

While the studio and filmmakers were loath to provide character details, it is understood that Jenkins and Whitford will play white-collar co-workers with a mysterious connection to the cabin.

The UA production is prepping for a spring shoot and will open wide February 5, 2010, with MGM distributing.