So what do you think of Cabin in the Woods?
Cabin in the Woods - Grading, Discussion, Spoilers
- Thread starter Argus Skyhawk
- Start date
As I mentioned in the previous "delays" thread, the movie exceeded all my expectations quite handily - which was great, since my expectations were pretty damn high. I couldn't help but chuckle every time an actor Joss Whedon had worked with on previous projects showed up (and when he had his own cameo!). I saw it with a couple friends, and all three of us left the theater already wanting to see the movie again. It was an absolute great experience from the first scene.
Right, we doing this then?
Well as I also said in the previous thread... loved it, but kinda don't wanna say much about it really so as to spoil any of it somewhat. Not saying its the best film ever made of all time, but yeah it was awesome and a lot of fun.
And I'll just add, Kristen Connolly... mmm
Well as I also said in the previous thread... loved it, but kinda don't wanna say much about it really so as to spoil any of it somewhat. Not saying its the best film ever made of all time, but yeah it was awesome and a lot of fun.
And I'll just add, Kristen Connolly... mmm
Feel the need to spoiler code a lot. Just some random observations
Merman! 
Great having Fran Kranz and Tom Lenk in the same film. Also I kept semi expecting a cameo from a Firefly actor, given that we had the others represented
Buffy- Tom Lenk
Angel- Amy Acker
Dollhouse- Fran Kranz
"I dare you all to go back upstairs"
I would agree with this little piece though that maybe the trailer gave too much away http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16972394
In that you did know who was gonna survive to the end and who therefore wasn't, and so I was just expecting their deaths through a lot of the movie.
Great having Fran Kranz and Tom Lenk in the same film. Also I kept semi expecting a cameo from a Firefly actor, given that we had the others represented
Buffy- Tom Lenk
Angel- Amy Acker
Dollhouse- Fran Kranz
"I dare you all to go back upstairs"
I would agree with this little piece though that maybe the trailer gave too much away http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16972394
In that you did know who was gonna survive to the end and who therefore wasn't, and so I was just expecting their deaths through a lot of the movie.
Very clever, often funny. Never frightening, never unsettling. Sometimes gross. but the picture I saw was so dim it was hard to make out faces and tell exactly what grossness was happening, which considerably lowered the ick factor.
Essentially a horror movie about making horror movies, commenting on the audience (negatively,) and asserting that the Fool is really the smart guy; the Virgin is just who we have to work with; the world really will come to an end if we don't cathartize our negative emotions; fuck the world, I'm not going to sacrifice my life or my personal friend's life. The take away messages are why the movie doesn't really do anything emotionally I think. Even a horror movie should inspire some real feelings. Woman in Black could do it, but not this one.
Rated good for clever. But this much cleverness should have made an excellent movie, and it isn't.
Essentially a horror movie about making horror movies, commenting on the audience (negatively,) and asserting that the Fool is really the smart guy; the Virgin is just who we have to work with; the world really will come to an end if we don't cathartize our negative emotions; fuck the world, I'm not going to sacrifice my life or my personal friend's life. The take away messages are why the movie doesn't really do anything emotionally I think. Even a horror movie should inspire some real feelings. Woman in Black could do it, but not this one.
Rated good for clever. But this much cleverness should have made an excellent movie, and it isn't.
I freaking loved this film.
I can't however, say why without giving anything away. Just go see this movie. This is one where you absolutely should not be spoiled.
I can't however, say why without giving anything away. Just go see this movie. This is one where you absolutely should not be spoiled.
Completely agreed. Fantastic movie!
Completely agreed. Fantastic movie!
I was discussing it with a friend at dinner and he was saying that he was surprised I thought it was so good because the trailers looked pretty lame. I was having a tough time explaining that the reason why it was so good was something I couldn't tell him.
Huh. Thought it was pretty fun... but somehow after all the hype and buildup I was expecting something a LOT more twisty and surprising and mind-bendy.
But this plays out pretty much like you'd expect from the beginning, with the main villain being the kind of thing we've already seen countless times on Buffy and Angel. In fact the similarities were a little TOO obvious. When I saw that final set, I almost expected to see a big kung fu battle play out on it. Lol
But this plays out pretty much like you'd expect from the beginning, with the main villain being the kind of thing we've already seen countless times on Buffy and Angel. In fact the similarities were a little TOO obvious. When I saw that final set, I almost expected to see a big kung fu battle play out on it. Lol
I thought it was just okay. The Whedonesque wit and jokey dialogue didn't always mesh well with the story. I actually nodded off a couple times during the film, but the last act got very good. If it wasn't for the monsters gone wild scenes I would say this film was a disappointment.
Now see, I didn't find it clever at all. It was one Whedon trope after another, beginnig to end, as if he was winking at us everytime another one popped up. No spoilers, but anyone even remotely familiar with Whedon's body of work will know what I mean. After the closing credits my wife turned to me and said "I feel like we just watched a bad mash-up of Buffy and Dollhouse".
^^^The only work of Whedon's I'm familiar with is one Alien movie; the Buffy movie; one episode of the Buffy series; maybe seven episodes of Firefly; the Serenity movie; about three episodes of Dollhouse, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Loved Dr. Horrible, (maybe that's because I'm a sucker for musicals with real plots) but I don't think the rest of it constitutes a notably good body of work.
Still, it is obvious that I haven't seen enough of the years of episodes of Buffy the series and years of episodes of Angel to be so familiar with Whedonesque tropes. And I'm sure that there are many people in the same position as me. But I can easily imagine that those who are familiar with all those hours of Whedon can find Cabin in the Woods rather familiar, not novel nor clever. For instance, the plot hinges on a character inexplicably but fortuitously returning from apparent death. This is a moss-covered plot device save for the twist that the character who returns is not the villain, but the hero. (If you can call someone whose actions doom humanity the hero, except that the movie plainly deems him the hero.) Look, a plot hole in an unusual shape! Clever, yes, but not as clever as writing a plot without holes.
Whedon and his co-writer weren't just winking at us, they were giving us the finger too. Why not? Why do we want to see the slut get killed?
Still, it is obvious that I haven't seen enough of the years of episodes of Buffy the series and years of episodes of Angel to be so familiar with Whedonesque tropes. And I'm sure that there are many people in the same position as me. But I can easily imagine that those who are familiar with all those hours of Whedon can find Cabin in the Woods rather familiar, not novel nor clever. For instance, the plot hinges on a character inexplicably but fortuitously returning from apparent death. This is a moss-covered plot device save for the twist that the character who returns is not the villain, but the hero. (If you can call someone whose actions doom humanity the hero, except that the movie plainly deems him the hero.) Look, a plot hole in an unusual shape! Clever, yes, but not as clever as writing a plot without holes.
Whedon and his co-writer weren't just winking at us, they were giving us the finger too. Why not? Why do we want to see the slut get killed?
I did love it, but one minor criticism I had of it was...
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.
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
Loved the part near the end too with the office guys celebrating, that one random guy trying to ask a hot girl out and totally failing was so random and brilliant.
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.
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
Loved the part near the end too with the office guys celebrating, that one random guy trying to ask a hot girl out and totally failing was so random and brilliant.
Just got out of the theater from seeing this one. My first impression: that was stupid. As an exercise in two filmmakers pulling out horror movie clichés and then pointing out how they're totally clichés, it's quite successful. As a satisfying film in its own right...not so much.
The biggest problem with it is, for a film that spends all its time asking the audience to think about the illogic of most horror films, it sure had a ton of holes itself. For example:
Indeed. It reminded me of why I hate most of Whedon's work (outside of Dr. Horrible, for whatever reason): it thinks it's far more clever than it actually is. Plus the Nerd's death was a straight-up copy of Wash's from Serenity, down to the shape of the sickle that punched through his head.
So, yeah. I thought it kinda sucked.
The biggest problem with it is, for a film that spends all its time asking the audience to think about the illogic of most horror films, it sure had a ton of holes itself. For example:
- How the heck did the Jock, the Fool and the Nerd survive their respective initial encounters? They each got stabbed/attacked with a bear trap and spewed blood everywhere! Yet instead of dying from shock and blood loss, they shake it off and continue to function just fine. What? How? Mr. Jock even used his upper body strength to pull wood apart mere minutes after being stabbed through the right shoulder.
- Ditto the Virgin, who not only survived drowning, being clamped with the bear trap, and tossed around and beaten bloody for five or so minutes, but makes it to the end of the film where she's torn into by a werewolf...and is conscious and functional literally one minute later within the same scene so she can casually smoke a joint while the world ends. Bull. Shit. There's suspension of disbelief and then there's not giving a fuck.
- So. Why are these elaborate sacrifice scenarios necessary? Oh, old Gods, eh? They demand it, or something. Okay. Well, I guess that means that if the victims ever found out it was all a setup that the whole thing would be null and void, huh, 'cause they have to choose to die. Wait, no? Really? Two of them do do find out? And you guys can just shoot them in the head in a elevator and it still counts? That...doesn't make any sense. Oh, and the Jock died outside the parameters of the cabin scenario, in a way that revealed the ruse to the survivors, and it still counted, too. So why not gather the five, take them underground and shoot them there in the bloody first place? The fool even asks basically this question at the end, and the Director doesn't really have an answer.
- And speaking of the Fool, whose blood was that that filled his receptacle after he got "killed?" Because he survived. Sure, he got stabled in the back and the tech guy threw a lever that drained his blood, but it must have been a flesh wound, I guess. Because he was fine. After being impaled by a zombie.
- No, seriously. Where did that blood come from?
- How did all the monsters held inside the facility get there? Once they escape, they're completely unmanageable and all our modern technology is helpless to stop them. Who captured them and how? Why weren't there any countermeasures in place that could actually work? (This isn't a problem with the film per se, but it is an interesting question, and I couldn't help but ask it while the movie was still playing.)
Indeed. It reminded me of why I hate most of Whedon's work (outside of Dr. Horrible, for whatever reason): it thinks it's far more clever than it actually is. Plus the Nerd's death was a straight-up copy of Wash's from Serenity, down to the shape of the sickle that punched through his head.
So, yeah. I thought it kinda sucked.
I'm going with "Good". More funny than scary, too clever, too philosophical for the final reveal to justify, and frankly, too damn many visual signatures from other horror movies for someone who's seen a lot of horror movies to take. Maybe that was part of the point, but "the point" could have been made without half of them.
I thought it was a fun romp. I'm not typically a fan of Whedon, but I really loved this one. I don't think it should be taken too seriously as some kind of "commentary" on horror films and horror audiences. The movie stands on its own two feet as an engaging thrill ride with great dialogue and awesome/disturbing visuals.
Similar threads
- Poll
