Escape to the Movies: Cabin In The Woods Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT | |
but...does it blend? | |
Um, really? Let's do a checklist if you don't mind. 1) Broad archetypes used to deconstruct the genre and commenting on movie culture as a whole. Sarcasm aside, I don't think it's at all a stretch to see the connections. | |
I'm an awful person for already being excited about this movie because it had Joss Whedon's name on it. I'm not trying to be a fanboy, but goddamnit, does he make bad things? I'm trying to find them, honest! What I love about this kind of stuff is that there are so many movies with a terrific-if-whimsical premise and absolute shit execution (for instance, the trailer for Looper reminded me of Jumper)... but Joss Whedon does such an excellent job of taking that terrific premise and executing it marvelously. We have too many "idea guys" in the various arts, who don't actually have the technical chops to make them happen. And we've got some technically-great artists that seem to miss the soul of things. Joss is one of the rare combo deals that make me squeal like a little schoolgirl when I see his name attached. | |
What type of horror are we talking about here? Over the top violence, jump scares or just disturbing shit. I'm not a fan of graphic ass gore and I absolutely HATE jump scares. So please, somebody tell me what i'm getting into before I go in. PM me if you're worried about spoiling it for other posters. | |
Saw Cabin in the Woods... it blew my mind. Gonna go see it again very soon. Edit: The 3rd act... I lost my voice i was laughing so hard It the sheer awesomness. | |
Well, I slept with a night-light for 9 months after I finished reading 'Salem's Lot when I was 19. I still double-check my windows every night three years later. But, after this movie, I haven't been really worried at all. It was a bit jumpy, but nothing overly scary. | |
It's violent but not straight up torture porn, and there are a fair bit of jump scares. Also it's pretty funny and well paced, in my opinion. Apparently, there are a lot of people that find every bit of dialogue Whedon writes insufferable, whereas I just see good dialogue. I don't know I guess I'm just not getting something :? | |
I'm probably going to write a few differant posts on this subject. I will say that this is one of my favorite movies of the last couple of years. It is however hard to really answer some of the comments in this thread, or concerns about the movie and what it might be (going by the trailers) without basically ruining it. As a result the rest of this post can be considerd to be a spoiler, partially directed at people who have seen the movie, and partially directed at people that would prefer to know what it's about before spending money on it (which they should, to support it and further things in a similar vein), either due to not liking Joss Whedon, concerns over the genere, or heck just preferring to know the end of a story before they see it so as not to waste their time. While the surprise being ruined DOES remove some of the fun, it's actually not that deep and I was able to figure out most of it by inferance within the first 20 minutes anyway, even if it was novel. SPOILER FROM THIS POINT ON: Yes this is Spoiler-rific (but for a reason). A pretty good synopsis of the movie is to say it blends traditional "campy" horror, lovecraftian horror, science fiction, and comedy into one package. The basic overall plot is that the "ancient ones"... think of Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos" are asleep below the earth, in order to keep them from returning a ritual must be performed, where specific types of people are terrorized and killed as a sacrifice. The world goverments realize this so for the preservation of humanity you have secret organizations luring people into prepared areas periodically and killing them to prevent this great evil from escaping. To be entirely fair this is pretty well spelled out by artwork shown during the intro credits, and some of the comments made by the guys in the "secret goverment organization" who are revealed early on in the actual movie, so most of this isn't going to surprise anyway. If that set up sounds wonky, it kind of is, but it is skillfully directed, and winds up poking fun at a lot of genere tropes. Part of the set up has to do with the sacrifices having to make choices, so the guys running the show have taken a bunch of cursed objects that summon monsters they have imprisoned and placed them under the cabin, and then kind of lead the people inside the cabin to them, where they choose what kind of creature is going to kill them (lesser supernatural creatures exist, and are apparently hunted down and captured). A point interspaced with scenes of lab nerds creating betting pools over what kind of crtitter the goobers are going to set loose on themselves this time, with some rather unsubtle referances to various popular horror movie franchises. You also have situations where the guys controlling the area where the cabin they lured people to is (which is sealed in by force fields and such) use mind control drugs and other tactics to control the behavior of the people in the cabin. For example there is one bit when the monsters are unleashed where the victims-to-be very sensibly say "hah, let's stay together and barricade the cabin so they can't get in" which of course freaks out the controllers who use hypnotic gas to cause the leader to suddenly switch to "hey, let's split up and cover more ground!" even if it makes no sense (less than usual) in context of the situation... which is kind of where the whole "comedy" thing comes into this. The movie does a good job of switching between what is actually some very serious horror and science fiction concepts, with very high stakes, and outright comedic insanity, without making the whole movie utterly stupid, which is quite a feat. Also the monsters are pretty awesome, early on you might be disappointed to see some of the options in the lab betting pool that were missed out on... but let's just say by the end you'll have seen tons of horrible monsters, including some rather stylish ones based on the more "WTF" options like "wait, death by Sugar Plum fairy?". The movie also lays down one of the most amazing (if playfully intended) smackdowns on the entire J-horror genere I've ever seen, that actually made me laugh. The above spoils the "plot" of the movie, without going into a blow by blow, but might be useful to some people, and I DID include a spoiler warning. For the people who have seen the movie here is a more detailed commentary on a specific ASPECT of the movie: I'll be honest in saying that I was also less than impressed by the ending, namely because once I realized what it was borrowing from Lovecraftian horror it was kind of predictable, espcially given the generally left wing morality being espoused in the media today, though this isn't really a political rant per se. See, the whole set up makes it pretty clear that the people in the cabin have to die for humanity as a whole, creating quite a conundrum as the survivors realize the reality of the situation. As a result I kind of felt that the "final girl" stereotype should have shot the stoner, or the stoner, who was basically supposed to be a good guy, should have shot himself. I could have dealt with the ending if they had made some point about breaking the cycle and perhaps being able to defeat this evil in the modern age, and themselves survived, but the whole "whelps, the right thing to do is to die ourselves but do it in such a way that humanity has to face the wrath of the Old Ones anyway" was just plain out F@cked up and oddly enough seemed out of character for the guy who was in the position where he needed to die to begin with. On the other hand I must say that the ending does leave it open for a sequel of sorts, albiet not as "Cabin In The Woods 2". Oddly with the way the movie ended and thinking of the high camp involved, I was thinking tha maybe Joss Whedon's new project should be to make his take on a giant monster movie (sort of like what JJ Abrams tried with Clover Field). Godzilla and Jet Jaguar (or more appropriatly the equivilent there of) throwing it down with Nylarthotep and Yog Sothoth (or the equivilent there of) in the middle of LA could be kind of amusing especially if done in a similarly obtuse way. I'm probably the only one who thought that would be a fitting "sequel" however (given that both movies would ultimatly be stand alone products with differant themes). All told, very good movie, if not very deep. The ending is one where you can see how you can have a mediocre ending to a hard to end storyline that manages to not piss everyone off by being that way like ME3 (yes I KNOW some people can defend it, but from people who saw the ending, it's very debatable, so obviously a lot disagree. However notice nobody is pissed off enough to lodge official complaints, and that's a differance, at least Joss made an effort here and the ending did kind of fit even if it probably could have been better), and afterwards when you take your brain out of neutral your going to ask yourself questions like how the goverment coalition behind this that captured/controlled all these monsters and the artifacts wasn't better prepared for a breakout (ie having people standing by with monster busting geaar as opposed to throwing black clad stormtroopers at bulletproof horrors... I mean they had to cage those bloody things to begin with, and get them back in after each sacrifice. Mass breakout aside, nobody did anything remotely competant and you'd espect some plan for a containment failure), or even why with massively more advanced technology nobody was prepared to say drop a couple of gigaton yield warheads down the hole as a last ditch effort if the sacrifice failed... I mean it might not work, but it would have been a nice touch. Basically filling the whole trope of the more massive an orgnization is, the stupider they obviously become. I might actually be convincing some people to NOT see this movie if they read past the spoilers and were undecided, but hopefully I will have conviced some to see it. In the end though this is very much a really good high camp geekfest, that balances the humor/absurdity and serious elements well, and the flaws with the set up are not going to be so glaring that they are going to beat you over the head when you watch it. For example seeing dozens of unique monsters tearing through security troopers is great entertainment even if it doesn't make sense given the set up if you bother to think about it. If you respond to me about the ending (please keep it polite, even if you disagree), or other elements, please remember your spoiler tag. | |
Edit: So I spent some time looking up this guy Joss Whedon: ---------------------- Soo, you won't review the movie because it'll have spoilers. So this isn't a review, its a 6 minute ad for the movie. Great, thanks a lot. Next time actually try to convince me to go see the movie. I loath horror movies because they all suck. This is a parody horror movie, but not the funny kind like Scary Movie, where cliche happens because its cliche and everyone in the movie self-knows its cliche. So sell me the movie! Why do I want to go see this? WHHYYYYY? Give me something to work with Bob! I don't have a hard-on for directors. I don't care about or even know about Whedon. Short of bothering to IMDB his ass, why would I care? You Haven't Sold Me On The Movie. Try again. | |
Really excited for this movie now, thanks Bob. | |
Just to add the list, other than Dr. Horrible the things you've seen aren't the things he's popular for. The bulk of his fanbase comes from two things, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. To a lesser degree there's also Angel(buffy spinoff) and Dollhouse, which were a bit more hit or miss for a lot of people, but around here when you're seeing people say that that his name sells the movie for them, myself included, they're Buffy or Firefly fans (likely both, although on this particular forum Firefly is synonymous with perfection for many people). So yeah, if you haven't seen Firefly or Buffy, no reason dropping his name should mean anything to you (and you should definitely watch both shows). If you have seen either show and simply didn't like them, then I have no further interest in caring what you think on the matter. | |
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil also took three years to make, it did a much better job deconstructing the slasher genre, it was funnier, and my girlfriend thought the romantic subplot was adorable. So, that happened. This movie got boring and predictable faster than you can say "written by Joss Whedon," which--when you consider the bug-nut direction this movie pretends its being clever in taking--is saying something. | |
If nothing else, this movie does involve a Unicorn impaling people to shimmery, uplifting music in one scene. Is it just me or do you seem awfully confrontational about this? It's just a movie, man. And to be fair, Joss' script for Alien: Resurrection was very different from the finished product. The whole "Ripley makes out with her weird hybrid alien pseudo baby" was not him. He hates that film just as much as you. | |
Those aren't movies Jadak. I look at movie experience for movie script experience, not tv shows. When I look at what movies he's Written for, I see failure after failure. If Serenity makes fans drop their pants and pull out their walletwangs then...wait how long ago was Firefly? Oh, ten years ago. And Buffy ended nine years ago (ten if you're like my sisters and the last season didn't happen). So other than a box office flop, and a short movie created during the writer's strike four years ago, the man has no real track record with success in the last decade. That's not going to sell me a movie in a genre I don't like. | |
No, this is a failure of a movie review. If you didn't want spoilers, don't watch reviews. That's what reviews ARE, they REVIEW the movie. If all I wanted was a six minute long advertisement for the movie, I'd go watch the Trailer. "oh but whatabout the people that just want confirmation that the movie is good?" First few seconds say: "movie is good, go watch." Roll opening: spoilers: <this is me talking about the movie and why its so good without worshiping Joss Whedon, while using objective and/or subjective data from the movie>. | |
I wasn't trying to convince you to see the movie, nor care any distinctions you want to make between movies and television shows, I was merely pointing out the source of his fanbase. If that source doesn't hold and weight with you, then there's obviously no reason his name should make any difference. And of course, he somehow got handed the Avengers movie, the quality of which has no bearing on anything at the moment seeing as it's not out yet, just something I find odd considering, as you pointed out, his lack of involvement with large theatrical projects. Being a fan, I'm happy with the choice and curious about how it'll turn out, but he's certainly an odd choice to be put at the helm of a major summer blockbuster like that. | |
not coming any time in my country. not even on the "coming soon" list. im interested in it. i might give this one a try. | |
Hmm, I might have to check this out. I saw the trailer once on youtube and immediately dismissed it as another dumb, stereotypical horror movie with sci-fi elements featuring copy-pasted characters we've seen a million times over. Seems like that's not the case. But, as much as I often agree with your reviews, Bob, I must be careful. I hated Watchmen and Sucker Punch and have no desire to see another movie of a similar vein. | |
That really would have been neat if they had a camera in the theatre to turn on the audience. Closest I've ever come to that kind of experience was "The Never Ending Story" | |
I saw this yesterday after hearing the first thirty seconds of bobs review and looking up a little bit about who was at the helm... God damn. Joss Whedon as writer, Cloverfield Director as Director. Walking in I wasn't sure, but I quickly found myself loving the movie, and Bob is correct, the last 20 minutes or so is mindblowing. Anywho, just like bob said, go see this, go see this now. This is my new favorite film. | |
First off: dammit! I really want to watch this film, so I didn't watch the review. Secondly: Thanks a ton for doing it this way Bob. Really appreciated. I must remember to watch this video in full once I have watched the film though. Again thanks for being so considerate :) | |
I also can't stand how people forget there are other styles of writing besides Whedon's so we end up with way to much of his pseudo-wit in other people's work (especially in video games). Whedon doesn't know how to do anything else and I feel like his dialogue hasn't really aged well due to it being aped and him refusing to evolve (which, like I said earlier, might be attributed to his poor handling of criticism) | |
Yeah, can't say I agree with Bob's 'review' at all (but then, I started taking huge doses of salt with his reviews since his glowing review of the entirely forgettable Captain America). While I'm not someone who loves or loathes Whedon (I watched Buffy back in the day, even though I thought it was cheesy back then, and I loved Firefly - at the time. Its borderline unwatchable now) this film was nowhere near as clever as it thought it was. A film that goes out of its way to point out - highlight - and damn well depend on its cliches is still cliched. And yeah, it isn't scary at all. Its not a horror film, its science fiction. | |
I honestly thought the trailer looked really silly. Like they were running out of ideas for horror movies so they added an early twist (with what the trailer showed). This may or may not be a spoiler, because I haven't seen the movie but... what would a government agency (or what not) waste over hundreds and thousands of dollars trying to scare or kill these teens with monsters? To me, it's like the most 'realistic' version of Scooby Doo but with no talking dog involved. Actually the comedy character reminds me of Shaggy, I don't know why. Besides that, I might have to look into this movie now. I'm judging it to much for it's cover and if it can really blow my mind then.. I guess it's best to see it before judging (after all, I don't like judging without knowing how a movie/game ends.) | |
he will LOVE Iron Sky. pretty much best movie for a very long time | |
Wow, that... that actually sounds really awesome. Gonna have to check it out. | |
So when this movie comes in short at the box office because its up against "Stooges," "Hunger Games" and "Titanic" on its anniversary weekend, will it be the new ART VS MONEY debate/rant we saw over & over for Scott Pilgrim losing to The Expendables? | |
Mindblowing? I just got back from watching the movie about 20 minutes ago and I have to say going in completely blind with only the same 30 secs of Moviebobs review that it was...kinda mediocre to say the least. I am sorry but if you couldn't see how this story was going to play out within the first 20 mins with all the information given you have absolutely no imagination whatsoever. Sure the cast was good, the idea behind the movie overall was solid enough but I have seen (heard) better, crazier concepts in black metal songs that were more enjoyable and ominous. I have been taking Moviebobs advice on a few movies and seen some of the ones he recommended but this time I felt he really blew this one out of proportion, it just felt way too predictable. I am pretty sure most horror movie fans will see the movie no matter what but I don't think any of them will be taken by surprise with the outcome, its all given away way too fast. I personally feel they should have just let the answers come out from the main characters exploration and not given away within the first 20 mins. I consider myself a fan of Whedons past work and think he definitely makes some interesting shows but this movie just didn't do much for me. | |
Why I hate my life: notice whats missing... notice what else is missing. I have officially had it with this mainstream BULLSHIT! (sorry, needed to vent, and at least here, it would be to people who would 'get it') | |
*SPOILERS* Unfortunately I cannot take credit for this interpretation. "The 'ancient gods' are the audience. The international house locations are the various countries that have been submitting regularly to the horror genre in the last decade or so. Granted, Sweden and France probably should have had a bit more of a nod, but the reference makes much more sense in context. And the whole 'eight minutes until sunrise' bit...? Guess what happens eight minutes later? Yup, lights up in the theater. The movie, and the world within it are over...everyone is effectively dead." To me it ended in the only way it could have - they had an idea and ran with it. And since the movie doesn't take itself seriously, it completely worked. They weren't trying to create some deep and profound movie that makes you think - they were trying create a fun cinematic experience, to which I feel they accomplished perfectly. I had tons of fun. | |
It's not really a horror movie at all, to be honest. There aren't many points where it tries to instill fear through anything but a jump scare. I'm not criticising the film itself, mind - it never tried to be a horror movie - but I'd advise people not to go in expecting one. Or do, I guess it adds another layer of surprise. But I don't think you 'll like it then, jacky. Let's just say there's one scene where every surface is painted with red :P | |
I assure you, the ditsy bimbo does not go kicking any monster ass. All I will say is that this is the best horror movie I have seen in a long time. It goes from normal, to bat shit insane. | |
*Spoilers* It's an interesting theory, but to be honest I don't think that was the intended interpetation, though I suppose it could make sense in a very "meta" way. I think that the movie's internal mythology makes sense in of itself, blending multiple themes of horror with the comedy, without the need for a meta definition. Especially seeing as the arguement your making would rely on RL occurances which could not be guaranteed. For example most theaters I have frequented won't turn up the lights until after the movie has been entirely over for a few minutes. Indeed, now that I think back I don't think they turned them on when this movie was over. I think the movie was intended to speak entirely for itself internally. | |
I rarely ever listen to "Go see now!" prologues, but for some reason this time I listened to Bob. Oh hell yes, yes, yes, yes. "Getting it in front of your eyeballs immediately" as he puts it is the next thing you should do, so long as you like the horror/comedy genre. I didn't think it would top "Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil" which was my most favouritist underrated film of 2010 AND one of the best, if NOT the best horror/comedy since Army of Darkness & Braindead... but alas, Cabin in the Woods even beats Tucker & Dale (Though I still recommend that hidden gem.) and is awesomesauce. | |
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This movie doesn't seem to be coming to my area anytime soon. What to do?