Is this as bad as people are saying?

That isn't what I wrote, is it? I wrote that it is as much a crime thriller as Cabin in the Woods is a slasher film. That means that though both films play with the tropes of a genre, neither belongs squarely in the genre.

The Little Things sets itself up as a crime thriller, just as Cabin in the Woods sets itself up to be a slasher film. If you went into both knowing nothing about the given film, after the first 20 minutes or so you'd assume "this is a crime thriller/slasher film." In both cases, the film gradually veers away from its purported genre, and becomes something else.

While I would not call Cabin in the Woods a parody, it definitely moves into uncharted territory as it progresses, and by the end it has nearly nothing to do with slasher films at all.

SPOILERS BELOW







The Little Things uses the audience's expectations against them, as it tells its story. When we meet the Sparma character, we think we are meeting the killer. As Deacon and Baxter pursue, investigate, and interrogate him, we're waiting to see how they catch him, or if he'll turn the tables on one, or both, of them. We're given glimpses into Deacon's past, a common genre trope, but in the end we realize we were given them for an entirely novel reason. At the end of the film, we realize we met two killers, both of whom got away with it, and one probably innocent man who took his fetish too far, and ended up paying for it. We never met the serial killer, we didn't find out what happened to the missing girl, and instead we watched a young man's poor choice of mentor, and his naturally obsessive personality (or is it part and parcel of his job, and inevitable?) lead him down a path that mirrors that of the other killer.

None of that is parody, but neither it is "crime thriller." It's not a genre film at all. It's a rather deep and twisted character study that happens to use a crime thriller setting as its backdrop.