Cabin in the Woods - Grading, Discussion, Spoilers

[ManOnTheWave]

Good, though I was leaning towards So So. It was funny, and I enjoyed the visual references to Friday the 13th, Evil Dead, and Hellraiser, etc. I was hoping it would be even funnier and more clever, but as it is, it's still more interesting than, oh, every horror film I've seen in years.

[chardman]

So, I feel we've finally seen the main branch of Wolfram and Hart, and damned if Josh Lyman wasn't the office manager. Who knew?

Loved the inevitable appearance of the mer-man and Whitford's reaction to it.

[Trekker4747]

Just got back from seeing this a little while ago and I really enjoyed it and was surprised about it as the "men behind the scenes" aspect I did not know about. Kristen Connolly is certainly a looker I'm going to keep my eyes on down the road. The movie was good fun, Hensworth did a good job as well and the movie is certainly filled with Joss Whedon-isms, tropes and sharp writing.

I really liked the slide-puzzle crypt of monsters, especially the Hellraiser-like monster, and I knew the aquaman monster would show up sooner or later.

Good movie, really enjoyed it and, hell, I'd like to see more-done. (And yeah, supposedly, the world ends at the end of this movie but I'm sure that can written-away. )


SPOILERS: I'm not coding it for ease of reading:

Ethros wrote:

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So the five archetypes are needed for the "ritual", the jock, whore, scholar, fool, and the virgin. But actually most of them weren't really like that, and thus were manipulated into being so. For example Chris Hemsworth's character was actually a pretty smart guy who started acting jockish, and the same for his girlfriend who wasn't normally that slutty.
My criticism would be that aside from about a 30 seconds scene at the start we don't really see any of them NOT in those roles anyway. The first time we see the Whore she's already gone blonde, the Jock is already throwing a football around in his first scene... so I just thought that aspect could have worked better.

I think the idea was that the subjects only needed to "fill the roles" not actually be those people which is why drugs and other mind-altering stuff was used to manipulate them into the roles. So long as while they're at the cabin and they satisfy the parts the god(s) would be pleased enough to allow the ritual to work.

The movie's meta-ness in that regard was clever especially the one with the virgin being allowed to survive or die so long as she was the last one in the process. What I found odd is that the movie suggested that the marijuana use of "the fool" negated the mind-altering/manipulative drugs they were using. Which... You'd think they would've have thought of that considering this ritual has been done for such a long time and not once they've encountered a pot-smoker?

[davejames]

Well today's pot IS considered to be a lot stronger than back in the day. Or so I've heard...

[Brikar99]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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What I found odd is that the movie suggested that the marijuana use of "the fool" negated the mind-altering/manipulative drugs they were using. Which... You'd think they would've have thought of that considering this ritual has been done for such a long time and not once they've encountered a pot-smoker?

I saw it a second time tonight. Amy Acker's character has a line that I'd missed the first time. She says that her team was supposed to swap out the stoner's pot with their own, but they "missed a batch."

[Trekker4747]

Ah, okay, I missed that. I liked the guy's telescoping bong disguised as a coffee mug.

[IndyJones]

DarthTom wrote:

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I liked it myself. And there a lot of unexpected surprises. My ownly criticism is does Bradley Whitford know how to play any other character except for Josh Lyman form the West Wing?

You obviously never watched The Good Guys.

[od0_ital]

Seen it twice now, still awesome the second time, and I noticed more stuff, too.

Will probably see it again, if a friend of mine is free to get to it next week.

[Brikar99]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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Ah, okay, I missed that. I liked the guy's telescoping bong disguised as a coffee mug.

That thing was incredible. I want it, and not even to use as a bong... just cuz it's so awesome.

The crowd in the theater was howling over it, too. This movie got great responses both times I went.

[Bob The Skutter]

I've now seen it three times. First time it seemed to go down well, second time it seemed my friend and I were the only ones enjoying it and I heard people complaining about how shit it was on leaving. Third time people seemed to love it again. So seems to be a bit of a marmite film.

[Admiral2]

IndyJones wrote:

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You obviously never watched The Good Guys.

That actually goes to the point. The Good Guys sucked. ("It's an orange gun!!")

[Ayelbourne]

Much better than Hunger Games.

Mainly because CitW had an extremely satisfying payoff, which was totally MIA on THG.

I watched it for the whedonesque and that's exactly what i got.

[Saul]

Wasn't going to watch it until I heard a lot of talk about it. Kept myself spoiler free and decided to check it out. T'was a fun movie to watch. Not great but it gave me a few good laughs, in particular the Japan ghost since I love J-Horror. A good film for Horror geeks and it makes me want to check out some old school horror films for the hell of it.

[Derishton]

Brikar99 wrote:

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I saw it a second time tonight. Amy Acker's character has a line that I'd missed the first time. She says that her team was supposed to swap out the stoner's pot with their own, but they "missed a batch."

This is one of a few moments that look like a very subtle insinuation that somebody was sabotaging the ritual at every opportunity: the delayed explosion is another. I found another aspect interesting: as someone says above, the blood in the ritual was not the blood of the victims. The whole ritual reveals the artificiality of religious ceremony, and only at the end does it confirm that the artificiality is not just in the connection between the event and "belief", but in purpose. Jesus doesn't love nor does he want you for a sunbeam. The gods are just infinitely stronger than us. Classic Whedon, in a good way.

[Ethros]

Yeah what was the deal with the delayed explosion? They made big deal of declaring they never got the orders through, just wondered was that about?