The Cabin in the Woods

’Cabin in the Woods’ Star Kristen Connolly on Keeping Secrets and an Unfortunate First Day on Set

The actress spoke with THR at the film’s Los Angeles premiere, where she and the filmmakers celebrated the long-awaited arrival of their new horror film.

As Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s highly anticipated horror film makes its national release — an event, quite literally, years in the making — many fans are discovering for the very first time just what terrors lie at the Cabin in the Woods.

The film made its worldwide premiere at Austin’s South By Southwest festival on March 9, but Hollywood horror buffs finally got the opportunity to screen the film at a special Los Angeles event earlier this week. Former soap star Kristen Connolly (As the World Turns, Guiding Light) was among those in attendance to celebrate the film’s release, which had been shrouded in secrecy since filming in 2009.

"I’m just happy that the movie is out and my mom can go see this movie as many times as she wants in the theater, which will probably be a lot," Connolly told The Hollywood Reporter at the screening’s after party, held at downtown hotspot The Edison.

With the buzzed-about project making headlines (the film faced an uncertain fate before being purchased by Lionsgate in the wake of MGM’s bankruptcy), the actors involved faced the seemingly difficult task of keeping the details of their shoot under wraps — a task that Connolly says wasn’t really all that tough.

"It wasn’t that hard to keep it under wraps because it’s actually a very hard movie to explain to people," Connolly laughed. "It was actually, in a way, a nice cop out for me to be like, ’I can’t tell you anything. I could explain it to you, but it’d take an hour.’"

"Waiting for it to come out was a bit frustrating, but you know what, it ended up being the absolute perfect situation," Connolly continued. "It ended up at Lionsgate, which totally got the movie and has marketed it in a really incredible way. They seem to be getting people excited about the movie without really telling them anything about it, and it turned out to be absolutely perfect."

One detail that was not so perfect? Connolly’s first day on the Vancouver set.

"We were supposed to shoot the gas station first," the actress said, recalling one of the film’s early outdoor scenes. "Everybody told us that it never snows in Vancouver — Never! And we all kept saying, Joss included, ’Well, it looks like there’s snow on this weather report.’ And the whole crew kept on being like, ’No no no, it never snows in Vancouver. Never, never.’ And sure enough, we all woke up the first day of shooting and there was a goddamn blizzard outside."

After making the hour-and-a-half journey to set, the cast and crew patiently waited for the snow storm to pass. For her part, Connolly said she passed the time by watching Disney’s Ratatouille from start to finish — an interesting companion to Cabin, for sure.

"Then they sent us home," Connolly exclaimed. "They sent us back to the studio and we shot the scene where I walked into the cabin for the first time… It was a rocky start, but it was all on the up-and-up from there."