Cabin in the Woods - Grading, Discussion, Spoilers

[Sci]

Mister Fandango wrote:

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You're the one who decided that it was something important enough to bring up and emphasize,

I didn't "bring it up and emphasize" it. I brought it up in one point. I didn't make a big deal out of it -- you did.

so yes, seriously.

I shall endeavor to read through every single thread and imagine every possible thought that might potentially occur to me six month down the line from now on.

That said, I apologize that my particular criticisms were enough to cause you to nerdrage on the topic.

I'm not the one who threw a hissy fit over someone noting but not making a big deal out of a minor mistake I'd made. Yours was the nerdrage.

Kestrel wrote:

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I think "fizzled" doesn't quite fit. "Burst into flames, flailed about, tripped and was impaled on rebar, then rose as a zombie and was shot in the head" would be more accurate, though doesn't quite catch the skin-crawling-awfulness that was the Connor arc in Angel S4.

Yeah, Joss and company really dropped the ball on that one.

[Trekker4747]

Bought the Blu-Ray today and watched the movie tonight, still a very interesting and fun movie/take on the genre.

But the best part of it is, clearly. Kristen Connolly who... Oh man.



Anyway, I'd be interested to see what Whedon and Goddard had "in mind" (if anything) when it came to the different items in the basement and which "monster" or situation they unleashed. We know that reading the Latin from the diary summoned the zombie family, the conch summoned the Merman and the "puzzle-sphere" summoned the "Hellraiser"-like demon. But with all of the creatures we see in the "prison" under the cabin and all of the trinkets in the basement of the cabin it'd be interesting to know how many dots and such are connected "behind the scenes" in the mind of Whedon.

An enjoyable movie though I'm generally mixed on the ending of it. It's hard to like an ending when two people, pretty damn selfishly, allow for the fall of all of mankind.

[Mr. Adventure]

Man, lot of Whedon angst in this thread. Luckily for me the second I found out about a twist of some sort in this flick I went into media blackout and so enjoyed this movie. Somehow i missed the trailer which was just as well I think. I just found it fun, I wasn't needing it to be profound or anything, though there was some food for thought to snack on in there.

I was smiling just seeing Topher and Amy Acker who got more than her fair share of adorable at birth. I think she must of stolen my share. And Trekker speaking of adorable I was surprised to see Kristen Connolly's age. I've always been a sucker for a girl in Mary Janes. Not to leave out the guys that's my favorite Chris Hemsworth role by far, I guess he's not made of wood after all. Loved the surprise guest star.

Maybe those horrors are what Angel and company were going to engage in the ending of Angel.

The bit with the Japanese schoolgirl horror cracked me up.

As an aside, Tucker and Dale vs Evil is another fun twist on cabin horror with Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine.

[Ayelbourne]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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Maybe those horrors are what Angel and company were going to engage in the ending of Angel.

Heh. This movie would fit neatly into the slayerverse. Minus the ending, of course.

[stj]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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As an aside, Tucker and Dale vs Evil is another fun twist on cabin horror with Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine.

Haven't seen that but a little flick called Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon addresses some of the themes hinted at in Cabin more directly and more adroitly.

[Mr. Adventure]

I should add that Tucker and Dale has a more comedic bent should anyone think of checking it out (it's on Netflix instant).

[PsychoPere]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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Anyway, I'd be interested to see what Whedon and Goddard had "in mind" (if anything) when it came to the different items in the basement and which "monster" or situation they unleashed.

Whedon addressed this topic in an interview in the Official Visual Companion (pages 40 and 41).

A: What is your favorite scene in terms of how it turned out?

Whedon: I would say the scene in the cellar. I am visually so compelled by that scene and I am absolutely certain that every single on of them is going to the thing [of summoning a monster], that the thing they're holding is going to cause something terrible, even though I know what's going to happen. The way that's show and the way it's cut - it's without a word, and you know I loves me my words, don't get me wrong, but I love Marty in that scene and I mostly love what Drew did with it. He fought to get it to be as dark as it was. He was very fierce about it looking like they had one lantern. They had wall sconces, they did all the things that people always did in movies to cheat, and Drew said 'We're not going to cheat, we're going to keep this dark, and we're going to light the lamp and it will be a different kind of darkness.' I get really tense during that scene, even though I'm well aware of what's going on.

A: It does make you want to do a frame search and look at all the objects, then match the objects to the monsters they summon.

Whedon: Well, that is actually part of it. Although we loved making jokes, figuring out what was going to be on the betting board and all this good stuff, some stuff that was on the board we knew that we'd see and some we wouldn't, but at the same time, we're very fierce about the reality of these things. They do summon something, we do know what it is, we know why you don't want to see it. And we know why it belongs in the cabin in the woods. Even to the point of, one of the monsters on the board is the Huron, which is literally just an Indian, because going back to the earliest settlers and their fears, that was the thing they were afraid of in the woods - the people who were actually supposed to have the woods. And so we really wanted to go back to show how this classic ritual had evolved over the years, from before movies.

(Bold added by me.)

[Mr. Adventure]

Watching the behind-the-scenes there was a lot of work done on all the different denizens but unfortunately I think of a lot of the detail gets lost in the actual film. While one could argue it'd get too over-the-top, I'd have enjoyed seeing a little more of it.

[DevilEyes]

Finally got the chance to see it when the DVD came out. I loved it. Of course, it doesn't bear scrutiny if you look at it through realistic lens, but it was never meant to be realistic. It's one huge meta commentary that's clever, fun, funny, scary (the procession of the monsters in the elevator was just fun, but the scenes in the cabin in the first part of the movie were quite chilling; they really got me with the wolf scene, I was expecting it to come to life any moment, and the diary of the redneck torture family girl was really creepy. The torture family were a great choice and creepy not because they were zombies, but because they were humans who enjoyed torturing and mutilating people and made a religion out of it, which is very fitting for the theme of the movie), and with a daring twist which I loved.

I saw the many Whedonesque connections - I was reminded not just of the Initiative, but also Wolfram & Hart,, and about AtS Not Fade Away with making a stand for the sake of it without much hope, and about BtVS The Gift: "I don't want to live in the world where these are the options".

Ethros wrote:

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I did love it, but one minor criticism I had of it was...

Also I wonder what other peoples theories were as the movie was winding down to the end. I thought at the end when the Virgin turned on the Fool (I just want to call him Topher Brink), but then got attacked by the werewolf, I was thinking Toper was gonna let her die, something like "that was a pretty foolish thing to do... and by the way, I've never had sex either."
Just thought that would have been a fun twist role reversal. Then the world could have been saved

No, it wouldn't, and it wouldn't have made sense, since Dana was not a virgin and her friends knew about her affair with her professor. But a man was never going to be given the role of the Virgin, whether he actually was or not, just like a man was never going to be given the role of the Whore, even if he were an actual hustler or gigolo[. And a woman was never going to be given the role of the Scholar or Athlete/Jock, even if she were the most intellectual and educate or the most athletic. The whole point is that these roles are very specifically gender-defined. Notice that none of the male stereotypes are related to sexuality, but the two female stereotypes are all about sexuality. Women must be classified either as Virgins or Whores, with all the value judgments and fetishization that goes with it. The movie's criticism of these damaging stereotypes wouldn't work if it ignored their inherent sexism.

Ayelbourne wrote:

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Much better than Hunger Games.

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

The "extremely satisfying payoff" in The Hunger Games isn't there because it's not supposed to be, since it's only the first book in the trilogy and sets up the tensions of the rest of the story. The payoff only comes in the other two books (which will in this case be the three sequels). And it is indeed extremely satisfying, IMO at least.

[Ayelbourne]

DevilEyes wrote:

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F
The "extremely satisfying payoff" in The Hunger Games isn't there because it's not supposed to be, since it's only the first book in the trilogy and sets up the tensions of the rest of the story.

Problem is: the movie structured in a way that doesn't tell you anything about a trilogy.
So, if you don't know about that fact going in (like me), the ending just infuriates you to no end. ("Huh? That's it? This barbaric game is just going to continue? What the hell was the point then?")
The first part of the trilogy should feel like a first part, not a one shot.

[Trekker4747]

]No, it wouldn't, and it wouldn't have made sense, since Dana was not a virgin and her friends knew about her affair with her professor. But a man was never going to be given the role of the Virgin, whether he actually was or not, just like a man was never going to be given the role of the Whore, even if he were an actual hustler or gigolo[. And a woman was never going to be given the role of the Scholar or Athlete/Jock, even if she were the most intellectual and educate or the most athletic. The whole point is that these roles are very specifically gender-defined. Notice that none of the male stereotypes are related to sexuality, but the two female stereotypes are all about sexuality. Women must be classified either as Virgins or Whores, with all the value judgments and fetishization that goes with it. The movie's criticism of these damaging stereotypes wouldn't work if it ignored their inherent sexism.

(Spoiler Code Removed Because, Well, Thread Title and All.)

Exactly. The archetypes they "cast" didn't need to perfectly fir the role just satisfy it enough for the purposes of the ritual. The Director at the end (Sigorney Weaver) admits as much when she calls Dana "The Virgin" and gets a "Virgin? Me?!" in response. "We work with what we got."

Dana was "virginal enough" for the ritual and whatever manipulations they hard on her in the meantime satisfied the ritual needs. Curt wasn't really a jocky ass and the blonde girl really wasn't a ditzy slut. They were all being manipulated to satisfy those roles for the ritual.

[DevilEyes]

Ayelbourne wrote:

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Problem is: the movie structured in a way that doesn't tell you anything about a trilogy.
So, if you don't know about that fact going in (like me), the ending just infuriates you to no end. ("Huh? That's it? This barbaric game is just going to continue? What the hell was the point then?")
The first part of the trilogy should feel like a first part, not a one shot.

How would the movie possibly tell you by its structure that they are sequels, other than the fact that the ending doesn't feel like an ending at all and that it's obviously setting up sequels? I knew the movie was based on a book but I didn't know if there was one book or more when I went to see the movie, but at the end of the movie I was sure that it was the latter and that there must be sequels.

And what kind of ending you expect to see? Everyone suddenly deciding to overthrow Snow and doing it over the space of 5 minutes without any blood being shed? Snow suddenly becoming nice after having a Christmas Carol-like epiphany and abolishing the Hunger Games?

[Ayelbourne]

DevilEyes wrote:

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And what kind of ending you expect to see? Everyone suddenly deciding to overthrow Snow and doing it over the space of 5 minutes without any blood being shed?

No, but some hints that Katniss had sparked a rebellion would have been nice.
Yeah, there were people rebelling earlier, but that got put down fast and was a non-issue by the end of the movie.
Look at The Fellowship of the Ring. Frodo was still on his mission and Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas had just given themselves a new mission. You just knew that this was far from over.
THG: Katniss wins and goes home. Plot of the movie done. Nothing has changed.The end.

[DevilEyes]

Ayelbourne wrote:

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No, but some hints that Katniss had sparked a rebellion would have been nice.
Yeah, there were people rebelling earlier, but that got put down fast and was a non-issue by the end of the movie.
Look at The Fellowship of the Ring. Frodo was still on his mission and Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas had just given themselves a new mission. You just knew that this was far from over.
THG: Katniss wins and goes home. Plot of the movie done. Nothing has changed.The end.

Any rebellion that was to start that quickly and in such an unplanned way would've never had the slightest chance of success and was going to be put down very quickly. What would have you preferred to have seen as the ending? Katniss wins, then the President gets the report of another spontaneous rebellion and looks worried, as if his forces can't put down that rebellion very easily as well, and they leave it there with rising inspirational music? Or worse, reports that there are spontaneous rebellions all over Panem and that Snow is genuinely concerned? I would have cringed at such a naive ending, which would've made it look, if you see the movie on its own, as if everything is simple, and the people in the Districts didn't rebel before just because they were cowards and morons, rather than because the government has the power and the weapons to crush them like bugs and obliterate their homes. The only rebellion that would have a chance would have to be huge and carefully organized and planned and certainly couldn't happen right away.

The rebellion in District 11, which isn't in the book, was obviously added exactly to show what even a small act of defiance that everyone could see could inspire people to rebel, and what an important figure Katniss might become, and that was very heavily hinted with Haymitch's warnings/instructions to Katniss, Snow's icy interaction with Katniss and the attention he's paying to her Mockingjay pin, and sinister and angry expression at the end.

[Ayelbourne]

DevilEyes wrote:

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Katniss wins, then the President gets the report of another spontaneous rebellion and looks worried, as if his forces can't put down that rebellion very easily as well, and they leave it there with rising inspirational music? Or worse, reports that there are spontaneous rebellions all over Panem and that Snow is genuinely concerned? I would have cringed at such a naive ending, which would've made it look, if you see the movie on its own, as if everything is simple, and the people in the Districts didn't rebel before just because they were cowards and morons, rather than because the government has the power and the weapons to crush them like bugs and obliterate their homes. The only rebellion that would have a chance would have to be huge and carefully organized and planned and certainly couldn't happen right away.

So let Katniss get contacted by some kind of underground resistance movement at the end. Works for me. Or let her start a resistance movement. Works too.

The rebellion in District 11, which isn't in the book, was obviously added exactly to show what even a small act of defiance that everyone could see could inspire people to rebel, and what an important figure Katniss might become, and that was very heavily hinted with Haymitch's warnings/instructions to Katniss, Snow's icy interaction with Katniss and the attention he's paying to her Mockingjay pin, and sinister and angry expression at the end.

Yes. And then nothing comes of all that in the end? District 11? Already forgotten at that point.

I'm sorry, it just didn't work for me.