are you even listening to me? THE CABIN IN THE WOODS thread (WARNING: SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILEROS! SPOILIDAD!)

hahah! let's not forget H20

not to pick apart the internal logic of the movie too much, but at the end the director is talking about the sacrifice of archetypes she says "it's different in every culture but it always requires youth," it kinda suggests that different cultures enact different rituals to appease THEE OLDE WUNNES, which is also supported by the footage of the japanese school children being terrorized by the creepy ghost girl. no '5 archetypes' there.

but if the ritual adapts to different cultures, and also adapts over time (no more throwing the virgin into the volcano), why are the Old Ones so specific about the sequence of the death of the 5 archetypes? #overanalysis #uselessquestions

the Old Ones seem to represent what that culture wants to see (virgin suffering but not necessarily killed, bringing down popular/successful kids like the jock and the whore as well as the more outcast, like the scholar and the fool), it seems more a criticism/homage to the whole Final Girl idea

it's in the memo abt tps reprts iirc

Surprised no one has noted that the actor who plays Marty was also the cause of armageddon on Whedon's "Dollhouse." Another fanboy joke, I guess.

this was fun -- the scene where te elevators open and all the monsters rush out was the most glee i've felt at the movies in a while

jw and elmo and i went to school w/ jesse williams. we were friends in eighth grade, but kind of lost track of each other afterward (read: he was way cool)

just saw this. loved it. i haven't read this whole thread yet (can't wait for the backlash!) but two things that i immediately wanted to share -- apologies if they've already been well covered:

1. love any slasher movie that ends with the stoner figuring everything out and then ending the world
2. thought that in addition to all the other themes (Lovecraftian horrors, storytelling, myth/symbol etc), one of the smartest was the way he messed around with audience identification and the final girl. i particularly liked the bit where whitford says something like, "after all of this, i'm rooting for her. she's been so strong -- TEQUILA!" i don't know if whedon intended this but i like how it undercuts these readings of pop culture as spaces of cultural resistance, or transgression. like, Clover, does the final girl trope get a mostly male horror audience to identify with a virginal female figure by the end of the movie? maybe, but only for a second before the audience is distracted by something else. you don't want to overstate the impact of that identification

1. love any slasher movie that ends with the stoner figuring everything out and then ending the world

Wasn't this the punchline of "Cabin Fever," that the stoner/drunk dude is the only one that survives?

was there anyone in that movie who wasn't a stoner or drunk?

There was one dude, if I recall correctly, who as soon as shit started happening was all "fuck this," and went off to a cave with a bunch of beer. And I want to say that the alcohol made him immune to the virus? But I could be making that part up.

yeah, that's what i remember. maybe it was a tent or a lean-to or something tho? memory of that film is hazy.

For some reason Cabin Fever has a following, but I really don't like that movie. There's a few moments of fun zany humor in it, but it's pretty tedious for the most part.

your welcome for the completely unsolicited opinion

you're welcome

u r welcome

back to bed

I hate "Cabin Fever." Eli Roth can suck it. Was that him cameoing in "Cabin in the Woods" as a security guard? May as well have been.

This was awesome, kinda amazed by the stray reviews that either say "not scary enough" or think the movie is making fun of them instead of the industry.

Dunno if anyone else has been pushing this interpretation, but what if the angry cliche-demanding gods aren't the audience, but studio execs?

Nah, I don't think this was a bite-the-hand sort of play. It's definitely the audience that's intended as the target of (mild) scorn.

movie seems so much more a parody of the cliche-ridden process, than an even remotely earnest critique of "the dark urges". also the angry gods are supposedly worse than anything normal people have ever witnessed, which is what people say about Harvey Weinstein.

anyway, i don't mean to suggest these guys thought about it too hard when they spent a weekend laughing and writing this, just that if people get uptight about any supposed shaming, they can easily extricate themselves from the metaphor

It's about Ronald Reagan's America.

thought an interesting almost throw away line @ the end was "i dont even think Curt has a cousin"

I know, right? Like they were so played they didn't even notice the most glaring red flag.

i don't think 'the fool' archetype is meant to be limited to drunks or stoners, like, what about the autistic savant in CUBE

Also, one of my fave jokes is that none of them adhere to their type: the Fool is smart/perceptive, the Virgin is not, the jock bro is on academic scholarship, the Whore is basically slipped a mickey ...

Dammit, I liked this one. Why are all the backlash reviews making me nod my head in agreement?

http://filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/cabinlockout.htm

bc it's a movie like dark knight or inception. high-concept popcorn movie that has broad appeal. backlashes to such films are even more transparently about status signaling + class than most backlashes. contrast with high-concept highbrow movies like tree of life.

that reviewer is 7 different kinds of butthurt

The thing is, it's not the tightest of films, so if you go in expecting both halves of its conceit - the horror movie half and the meta-commentary half - it doesn't all work, to be honest. No, it's not particularly scary, well-shot, acted, etc. But all those things can be overlooked once you focus on the other half of the set-up, which that above review pretends (incorrectly) is just 20% of the movie.

True, I relished the backlash against The Tree of Life. Made me feel special.

i'll admit if this film isn't funny to you it's probably offensively pretentious/judgmental/whatever is putting a bug up some horror enthusiasts' asses

bc it's a movie like dark knight or inception. high-concept popcorn movie that has broad appeal.

Likely the intent but:

6. The Cabin In The Woods (Lionsgate) Week 2 [2,811 Theaters] R
Friday $2.4M, Saturday $3.3M, Weekend $7.7M (-47%), Cume $26.9M

Needed more pencils in eyes.

I love all the moments where this filmfreak guy basically says "the only people who will like this movie are the kind of people who will like it!"

The film doesn't care (neither do its fans), but wasn't there a better way out of the puzzle besides...that? Especially in a movie all about being clever--unless the fact that it's so stupid that only a backwards idiot would accept it at face value is its clever poke. At you. At us.

It's a joke for the filmmakers and their buddies and the "Firefly" fanclub--a big, wet circle-jerk. The Cabin in the Woods will get you off, is what I'm saying, but only if you're into that sort of thing.

well, yeah - doesn't mean it's successful at doing that, but that'll clearly be the context of the backlash. the term 'backlash' suggests that you're responding to something that has already gotten positive spin. if cabin in the woods was a direct to video release without joss whedon's involvement it would just be some cool netflix watch instantly movie you found and there'd be no pressure to outline all of its problems. (this was totally the context i saw Cube in - had never heard of it before and if ppl had been raving about it before i saw it i probably would've been more put off - instead i really enjoyed it.) so clearly what you're backlashing against is the ppl who like it, not the movie itself (nested in the crit is: 'this movie does not deserve the praise you're giving it' not 'this movie deserves no praise').

why is it fans of the the most socially transgressive genres are often the most sensitive to mockery?

afaic, if you can find absolutely no pleasure in this movie (and really in whedon'dom in general) you're probably getting more pleasure out of not finding any pleasure in it. in which case, live + be well, who am i to tell someone not to enjoy their curmudgeonliness?

oh kiss my ass

It's just weird to me the extent to which it's pissing off a certain demo of horror fans. At worst, it's a stupid movie, not "anti art," like I saw someone charge it with on FB.

you're such a weirdo xp

haha whoops, mordy sorry. For some reason I thought you were saying there was no pleasure in whedon'dom except the absence of pleasure. totally misread you!

i thought the whole conceit of the archetypes was only partly a riff on conventions of the horror genre, but also how adults (the old ones) stereotype and marginalize young people

Oh noes. Liking this movie = lol ur old

(Which would explain the mockery of the "I learned it from watching you, dad." bit in review above.)

i saw a long article about that on philly blog this week (about how the film is about marginalizing millennials) but as ideas go it only needs a sentence or two to exhaust its possibilities and this post gave it like 2000 words:
http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2012/04/19/millennials-cabin-woods-boomers/

Kind of a new high in self-defeating early-onset self-obsolescence to reason that one's "getting" the joke when the kids don't means it's lame and irrelevant.

i mean i don't really think the ultimate aim was to gut the horror genre, but it played with genre conventions to make a larger point about youth culture, even if that point didn't really resonate for me in the end