The Cabin in the Woods - Post Release - Page 5

I know, man! I said it wasn't just a fuck-everyone movie! It's just a tangent!

Yeah, sorry. I didn't catch that post until I'd finished mine.

Yeah, that's kind of where it slips up. Then again, the fact that this kind of thing is apparently a large-scale, history- and globe-spanning effort and nobody's ever gone to the lengths Dana and Marty have to do the right thing before does kinda justify it a bit.

Just got home from seeing this. So fucking great. This movie is just so damn quotable.

"I'm sorry I let a werewolf attack you and then caused the end of the world"

 

Incredible.  Need to let this digest a bit, but wow.

 

The barrage of FUCK YOUs from Jenkins is great, and the sheer absurdity of whats going on on that monitor - the chanting children forming a circle, the demon-ghost-thing turning into a frog, the fact that there were zero fatalities - makes me wish there's a 4 hour directors cut of this floating around somewhere.  At the end of the day it would probably amount to little more than unnecessary bloat, but I want to know whats going on in all these other arenas and what their rules are.

 

Ready to see this again.  Immediately.  

I read Dana sighing "humanity" near the end as a reflection of the fact that in her eyes - considering she just uncovered a massive bureaucratic entity dedicated to torturing and killing her and her friends - humanity can go fuck itself.  If that is what it's come to, then fuck it. 

Unreasonably chipper Japanese girls are never not funny.

I think that attitude is pretty problematic too, but given Dana's ordeal, I can forgive her for lumping all of humanity - the majority of non-governmental humans being unaware of the sacrifices - into the pot and being dismissive about the fact that millions of them will die for a stoner.  I don't know, I can understand why Dana got to that point, but the attitude seems to be more of an irrational product of her ordeal than a reasonable reaction.

 

 

BILLIONS!

I loved it like everyone, it was like a great feature length Community episode. Incredibly rewarding meta slyness crossed with thoughtful, funny and humane characters, through writing and performance.

As much as I liked the kids (and I did like all of them), I have to come down on the controller's side. There's a certain fucked up nobility to what they're doing, while the kids POV is incredibly self-involved. Or maybe Whitford and Jenkins were just funnier, I can't be sure. Regardless, what an ending. Genius writing.

For anyone who thinks the motorcycle gag would have worked better if it was the first time you see the force-field, I strongly disagree.

The brilliance of the movie is that it puts us in the shoes of the control room guys and, to a certain extent, the ancients. We need to have enough information to know what's going on to be as callous and cruel about it as they are. When "the whore" is about to take her top off, we might as well be the guys in the control room. When "the virgin" is getting destroyed by Bear Trap Giant Zombie in the background as they're celebrating, we're supposed to be laughing. We're entertained by this, we're getting something out of it, our blood lust is fulfilled by what we're seeing.

So if the motorcycle gag was unveiled for the first time in that place, it might be funny as a punchline. But since we know ahead of time, not only is the build up and the punchline funny, it fits into the movies themes. It basically gives us permission to laugh at the characters cruel fate, which is frankly why we're drawn to horror movies in the first place. We want to see them die. And the more clued in about their death, the more entertainment we get out of their suffering.

This movie was simply fantastic.

I think the Harbinger on the Speaker Phone might have been the highlight for me. But it's hard to say.
 

Scariest scary thing was that Bat monster. UGH.

I guess "witches" and "sexy witches" is another one of those grey areas like zombies.

 

 

 

I just saw this YET AGAIN.  Got a better look at the monster board, and my favorite is the name for the giant bat. 

 

"Dragonbat."

 

Also, does any body have a song list for this movie?  I'm thinking of the dorm room song Dana's listening to, the wolf make out scene etc?

 

I found the trailer song in IMDB.  It's called Young Blood by the Naked and Famous for any body that's interested.  It's not a bad song honestly. 

Edited by Freeman - 4/14/12 at 10:03pm

When Sigourney Weaver is telling Dana that, "There is no other way..."

 

... did anyone else say, "THERE IS ONLY ZUUL..." to themselves?

 

Seeing as how Weaver also played a Dana once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jo_0pZ4MYo

 

Maybe my single moment I enjoy from that show any more. 

Dammit.  You allowed Family Guy to make me crack a smile.  I'll NEVER forgive you.

That mean nothing to me, because I'll never forgive myself...  I'll NEVER forgive myself...  :(

Oh and one more classic monster on the board that hasn't been specifically noted...  Vampires.  I would be interested to see what Cabin depicts these guys as.

It's true, I want to see more iterations of the same story. I would love to see the Mermen version, the rape tree version, the clowns, the Sugar Plum fairy, etc. And the foreign offices as well. It's rare that a world is created where I want to see not just more stories, but different versions of the same story. It's like Mass Effect or something.

OMFG!  Could you imagine Spike and Angelus busting down the door of that cabin?  My head would explode. 

So the Dana dorm room song is by OK Go, and it's called White Knuckles.

 

Here's a complete song list in case any body else was starting to get the songs stuck in their heads like me after repeat viewings. 

 

http://www.squidoo.com/cabin-in-the-woods-soundtrack

Moment we missed the first time:

 

When Marty drives up at the beginning, he ensures his car door is locked. Even though his window is wide open.

 

This is my favourite of the year so far, and Marty is the highlight. There isn't a line out of his mouth that didn't kill me.

 

"Yeah, I had to dismember that guy with a trowel. What have you been up to?"

 

"The wind must have blown it open."

"And that makes what kind of sense?"

 

 

I might be in love a little bit...

 

Plus feel free to add...

I believe that's pretty much antithetical to the film's point. Variations on the same scenario eventually comes to a head in terms of entertainment value.

I think the point of the film is that we have seen all those version.

Except maybe Dragonbat. Which was actually an awesome design.

Regarding Whiteboy's point...the film is built to put the characters there. We don't see a SINGLE character who isn't one of the five kids or the technicians, save the Japanese girls (who are also players). We see a drawing of a professor who took advantage of Dana, but that is it. This movie isolates the characters just like the technicians from the get-go. There is no humanity. So the movie isn't saying "fuck everyone". To the movie, there is no everyone. The technicians are everyone else. None of the characters ever mention a parent sibling or friend (just the nebulous fake cousin) outside the group. It is intentional.

As for the techs...they should have hired a risk consultant. Layers of protection. Layers. Not a single door. If I was working there...I'd want layers.

Two complaints...I didn't see any sexy witches . And no Zuul? When the theme of the sacrifice is choose your own destruction. Very gauche to not have a Zuul.

In the end, I liked it quite a bit. I agree with the folks who say it is both criticizing and celebrating. It clearly seems to be. It even savors the deaths of all of the techs, as illustrated in this thread. It absolutely needed Whitford and Jenkins to make it work. Less capable actors in those roles would have doomed this film.

Very ambitious.

That would have been way too on the nose. Guh, just thinking about it makes my butthole pucker with rage.

I have no idea why my asshole would pucker if I was angry. I should probably see a doctor.

 

Yeah, I think the movie's argument is that either we've seen all these things before, or we've seen loose variations of them plenty of times. Of course, we haven't seen Cenobites mess around with some teenagers i a cabin, but it's pretty easy to imagine how it would go down after ten of those movies. And stuff like the Merman and such would probably come across like a run-of-the-mill monster movie, or Pumpkinhead or something. I'm not the only one who thought of Hatchet with the redneck zombies, right?

Then I would hate this movie, and hate all of you, and then kill all of you, and then kill myself.

Or lay off the anal bleaching. There had to be a side-effect at some point. "Trendy cosmetic procedure causes the puckering of anuses. News at Eleven."

 

Anyhoo. Cabin in the Woods joins films like Inception, The Artist, and Drive as the new spate of movies about movies that are examining and challenging our relationship with the medium and genres w/in said medium and so on. With films and filmmaking in a somewhat precarious position in terms of the amount of alternatives in the marketplace, I think these films serve to remind us of what's special about the medium, about why we fell in love in the first place. That's probably why I must admit to a slight irritation when people start talking about how such and such movie reminds them of such and such video game. I'm an increasingly crotchety old fuck as well, so that doesn't help either.  

Drive barely qualifies as a movie about movies. 

Which is why I threw in the caveat about "genres w/in said medium", as Drive most certainly looks into that, and a prevalent archetype(s). Though I would argue that several of its reference points absolutely make a certain layer of it a movie about movies, if not *specifically* filmmaking.

Wait, wait, he beat the guy down with the bong? I think the projector in my theater was too dark, I didn't see that. God I love Marty.

Some thoughts I had on the subtext of the film, if interested:

 

http://shloggshorrorblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/cabin-in-woods-full-soilers.html

"Puppeteers, eh?  Well, I control my own brain!  ... ... ... I think I'll go for a walk..."

 

Did Marty remind anyone else of Spike Jonze?

 

Not until you just mentioned it. I was quite taken with that character, and little things like Dana standing around in her underwear for any and everyone to see. It's such an annoyingly common thing these days that you may not really appreciate it as a joke until Hemsworth draws your attention to it.

I sincerely hope the DVD/Blu-ray is jam-packed with special features about all the different creatures. There is just way too much awesomeness that barely flashes onscreen not to be celebrated in a more detailed context.

I disagree. I think the giant tentacled thing that pulled Lin up through the ceiling was Kevin.

 

The Sweeden scenerio gave me a "The Thing" vibe.  I can't wait for the multiple commentaries to reveal all the little details. 

 

I wonder if Joss and Co. would allow prequels?  It made around 5.5 million Fiday so It's not a huge hit.  Not even sure how it would work but seeing all the different locations might be cool.

 

And if doppleganger Spike showed up in a duster I would have died. 

 

2nd viewing still couldn't make out what Tom Lenk wrote.

THANK YOU!

 For as much as I love Buffy and Angel, having Spike and Angel in the movie would have been too clever for its on good.

I totally agree with Whiteboy about the "humanity should die" nonsense (and I sometimes worry a bit about Whedon's mental health--the guys' work, for all its wacky funsterism, has a bone-deep cynicism and moral despair about it, not to mention an obsession with the apocalypse and dystopia) but this is right on the money too. (And yes, I know Whiteboy is acknowledging that TCITW has the correct ending, I'm just being rhetorical.)

 

I remember some people criticizing The Matrix Reloaded for Neo being "selfish" for choosing to reject the Architect--actually even the first movie had some people claiming that the rebels were being foolish for rejecting the Matrix, with its security and relative comfort, for a nebulous "freedom". But of course, that's the ultimate method of control--to say "Well, OK, you do have another option, and it involves total destruction." There'll always be that punk-rock streak in any healthy person's brain that says "OK, then, total destruction it is. Go fuck yourselves, gentlemen!" Reloaded took it a step further by pointing out that the options presented to you can be just another form of control, and that rejecting them didn't necessarily mean embracing destruction, but either way, it's a good sentiment.

 

I'm pretty sure they specifically left vampires out (except on the board) specifically because Goddard and Whedon had been writing them for a collective 12 years and were sick of them. Which makes Rex Reed's review all the more bizarre.

I gave this a read but I must profess, I don't know what your point was. I think maybe your larger thesis was lost through an overuse of 50-cent words. Or, more likely, I'm just really dumb. 

The friend I was with caught the Dismemberment Goblins and the Witches vs. Sexy Witches; I actually missed a lot of it. There are some incredibly deep cuts in the horror movie references--The Strangers, Scarecrows, It, the Evil Dead (in several ways, including the Molesting Tree)...I'm not sure what the Sugar Plum Fairy is referring to specifically (Silent Hill?) and there was that bizarre robotic scorpion thing which kind of baffled me. The Dismemberment Goblins have to be a reference to Troll 2, right? Or what...Gremlins? Critters? Phantasm? The Gate?

 

Did someone identify the jittery barfing dudes from something?

     Quote:

It sounds like shit compared to their live performance of it.

 

Honestly, I think I need to see this again, as I'm torn about where I stand on it. I understand all the things everyone is pointing out here but some things still seem hard to shake: I hate zombies being the initial antagonists, even if that's the whole point of what they're trying to say (I've basically sworn off all-things zombies for a year because I'm so sick of it). It also ripped me out of the movie when they started talking about The Ancient Ones. It just seemed... too far. Too silly. Too lazy. Too disconnected.

 

That said, I really need to see it again because I don't think my head was fully capable of settling into it. We had a weird ass time leading up where the theater had to be evacuated before it started because something caught fire. We were ripped out of the theater twice and then after some waiting it started. We sit through the credits, wonder why all the trailers are for kids, then get slapped in the face when The Three Stooges starts playing. Someone runs out to tell them, they switch the film, but the aspect ratio is fucked up at the top. I run out and go tell them and walk back in when our 2 guys are driving the golf cart and the title slaps up and I'm wondering what just happened.

 

So... yeah.

There was a few more monsters, the beetle thing that leaps onto a Swat guy, the Silent Hill looking doctors who were operating on a dude, the weird Silent Hill thing crawling on the ceiling that looks into a camera...  I think my new personal favorites are the Strangers style Doll Face Family.  They remind me of the monsters of Hush, they have this kind of horrifying elegance and grace to them that makes them creepy as fuck. 

Y'see, I thought the big bat thing was the Vampire. 

Apparently not, it's a "Dragonbat".

Well, that's just disappointing. 

 

I have nothing but love for the film, the audience I was with less so. I ended up guffawing quite loudly when the Merman sprayed the blood out of its back, and I could almost hear the laugh echoing around the cinema. 

That fits, but I just couldn't stop thinking of Shaggy from Scooby Doo.