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

did you guys catch the intern holding the sign? what did it say?!

i dunno, but yes i caught it in passing. wanted to pause and go back so i could read it. lot of details went by almost too fast to catch. like the betting board, which someone thoughtfully posted in the other thread.

I was scanning the board like a madman in the theatre

this was AWESOME

when i saw it, right before it started, this girl, probably around 14, was running down the steps and fell and did a faceplant and everyone laughed. when the elevators dinged she and her two friends gasped so loud everyone in the theater heard it and laughed.

xp oh yeah and some guy down in front shouted "KEVIN!" when the board popped up

Sugarplum Fairy

kind of a "heavy-handed" ending, huh guys?

this was awesome, btw. total blast.

i wasn't really a fan of Franz Kanz though (i assume he's a Whedon regular?). Kind of an awkward comic presence, and not in a good way

I like him, but maybe I'm just envious of that bong

he was in Dollhouse, and (for me) he came across the same way as I imagine he did for you at the beginning of the series, but he eventually developed incredibly well. Same thing happened here, although instead of "incredibly well" it was just "well enough".

christ those Rex Reed/Jeffrey Wells reviews are angering me up

god that wells review is weird. key slice:

No horror film is about basking in the humanity of the characters and taking emotional saunas. All horror films say to the audience, "You're fucked." But even for a genre that has revelled in blood and torture and sadism over the last 25 or 30 years, Cabin In The Woods is a stand-out. Horror isn't about "scary" this time -- it's about an ice-cold spectator game that will deaden your soul. Nobody cares, everybody suffers, blood everywhere, take the pain, life hates you, we hate you, God hates you, Lionsgate hates you, fuck off, we want to hear you scream for mercy. Oh, and one more thing: you're so much more fucked that you know.

Sugarplum Fairy

yeah, it made me want to see all the other permutations SO DAMN BAD

that's the thing, the whole system purge bit is all about the pure joy of horror. All those scary creatures in the same place. It's just fun!

a musical number wouldn't have been that out of place in this

the fact that there was actual payoff for the merman joke is so damn awesome

Gah, the Rex Reed review is even worse than the Wells. And kind of embarrassing, too. He doesn't seem to have understood what was happening in the film:

It’s all part of an elaborate video game that allows paying customers to watch real people slaughtered according to the horror of choice. The five kids in the cabin are innocent pawns to test the mechanics of the game, the way fiends in a horror movie test the sounds of screaming babies as they feed them to the jaws of mutated crocodiles.

The game, like the movie, is a meaningless absurdity. If it sells, people with a passion for gore can experience real terror while the players are shredded, one by one.

the fact that there was actual payoff for the merman joke is so damn awesome

oh yeah, maybe the high point of the whole damn thing. or, well, one of many.

somehow never read a Rex Reed review before, but just from what I saw in his CITW review I can't stand him

yeah, a few critics seem to have gone with the "oh it's a reality show society is crumbling do you see" angle". No it's not. It's to appease THE OLD ONES

South Park had a similar idea in that Britney Spears episode, kind of brilliant and otm actually

the fact that there was actual payoff for the merman joke is so damn awesome

Had a brief disagreement on twitter about this. Guy thought the joke was ruined and should have just been a throwaway line. I disagreed. #teamblowhole

I was worried it was going to be Reality TV very, very briefly, as I think My Little Eye covered that territory pretty well.

the merman joke was expertly built up i thought

they did kind of hint at someone who was watching though right? was it, you know, ripley? or old ones?

did anybody else wish the end credits had rolled over a montage of the only ones completely annihilating the world. like with "holiday road" or something instead of nine inch nails? cuz i sure did.

lol "the only ones"

THEE OLD ONES

Another cabin, another planet

they did kind of hint at someone who was watching though right? was it, you know, ripley? or old ones?

if so, i didn't catch it. seemed to me that the video feed was only for the purposes of the monitors, though it was probably watched in different ways by people at various levels in the operation.

i smacka you face

^ old ones to urfs

a lot of people were awesome in this, but man did bradley whitford fucking knock it out of the park.

otm, though i can't let that go without raising a glass to richard jenkins

One niggling plot hole, though: thry had heart monitors watching all five of 'em, so why were they surprised when stoner dude turned up alive?

I kind of thought that he worked out there something monitoring him and tore it out but I'm making a huge leap there. That whole twist wasn't handled as well as it should have been. Though having the final girl fighting on the dock on those screens as everyone was partying was pretty great.

xpost I think the intern is holding a sign that says "I'm just the intern." May be an in-joke I don't get re: the actor.

Did you catch how many of the scenarios/horror movie cameos pop out of the elevators? Yes, the Angry Molesting Tree makes an appearance, but so does the elevator full of blood from "The Shining."

Still want to know how every international scenario was able to best its villain. You'd think this would be a little less convoluted, given what is at stake. There is a throw-away line like "this was a lot easier when we could just throw someone into a volcano." Well, why don't they? I did like the meta-joke that the reason all the other countries fail is that they are not good at horror, but that doesn't quite explain it.

Double-metagag when they imply the exploding tunnel ruse was messed up by something "upstairs," which briefly implies God. But in this film, the lab is downstairs, so by upstairs they mean the stoner fiddling around with the electrical box. Which they didn't know at the time. And kind of makes for a hilarious God-metaphor.

I used to read Wells a bunch, and I was a regular commenter, but to date that is the only site/forum that made me say "fuck this place," leave and never looked back. The dude is an ass.

Jeff Wells is NOT a critic, just sayin'

this was grebt imo. much funnier than BRIDESMAIDS and not much scarier, but great great fun. the whiteboard and the various horror cameos were brill. sugarplum fairy and Fornicus were champs during the free-for-all.

was kinda bummed that the *SPOILER ALERT* merman *END SPOILER* wasn't ultimately scarier-lookin' but there's no question it had to show. blowhole made up for unthreatening cartoony look.

"am i on speakerphone?"

I dug this well enough, although hardly the "game changer, OMG 5 stars" that some press has painted it. Lots of fun, but *MILD SPOILER I GUESS* the bird hitting the force field in plain sight early on really spoiled the Evel Knievel attempt later as it totally telegraphed the outcome, whereas if that had just been allowed to happen then I'd have been much more WAU *END SPOILER*. Merman blowhole was A+ though, as was speakerphone lulz and as mentioned the attention to detail was v engaging. I did fuckin' love the evil Hellraiser style dude-with-puzzle-ball (is this a thing? I don't recall seeing it before).

Can't say enough good things about the wolf's head scene.

Thor was about to solve the puzzle ball in the cellar.

*MILD SPOILER I GUESS* the bird hitting the force field in plain sight early on really spoiled the Evel Knievel attempt later as it totally telegraphed the outcome, whereas if that had just been allowed to happen then I'd have been much more WAU *END SPOILER*.

That's what I said on the other thread. They blew an opp for another "Deep Blue Sea"-level gag.

I'm totally seeing this again this afternoon, this time with my wife, who has no clue. Before I went the first time, she was all, oh, I won't ruin it for you. So last night I asked her if she knew what was going on in the movie, and she's all, yeah, a bunch of kids go out to a cabin, and a whole bunch of horrible stuff happens to them. I said, you have no idea, and immediately booked a sitter. Though of course, when I saw it on Friday at noon, I was sitting in front of an extended Mexican family: grandma, two parents, possibly an uncle, four kids, the youngest maybe as old as four. I wonder what in the world they got out of it.

>Thor was about to solve the puzzle ball in the cellar.

Should've been clearer: I remembered the ball from earlier in the film, but wonder if this character and device are from the wider world of fantasy/horror than just this movie? It's a clear riff on Hellraiser, but was pretty striking visually and I liked the puzzle master's baleful gaze.

*SPOILER* Josh, spot on, regarding DBS. It seemed an odd misstep, and Thor's "don't worry, I'll get help and we'll kick their ass" speech would have been much more satisfying if his demise had been allowed to play out as a total suprise *END*

Potential cursed basement artifacts iirc included the puzzle ball, jewelry box, conch shell (I assume to call the merman!), mirror ...

Conch was def for the merman.

Pinhead and only Pinhead, I supsect, though I think I get what you mean. The motif and imagery resonate really strong in the moment, the, I dunno, twenty seconds it's confronted it in the CUBE prison.

Yeah, that shot held on the puzzle master's face was a successfully creepy moment, I thought. Rest of the film is a lot of fun, but barely a shiver raised throughout.

I'm of two minds w/r/t to the force field scene - it would have made a fine DBS type scene, w/ say the forcefield showing more strongly (brighter) to key the audience into what it really was and maybe a quick cut to Whitford saying "At least the forcefield isn't glitching, god knows we don't want a repeat of '05."

On the other hand, it's entirely in line w/ the movie's m.o., all the tropes underlined beforehand, the audience knowing ahead of the kids that the end-of-the-second-act uplift is gonna prove false and Thor's heroism is gonna falter, w/ our POV, by that part of the movie, pretty close to the middle-management down in the bunker.

Still want to know how every international scenario was able to best its villain. You'd think this would be a little less convoluted, given what is at stake. There is a throw-away line like "this was a lot easier when we could just throw someone into a volcano." Well, why don't they? I did like the meta-joke that the reason all the other countries fail is that they are not good at horror, but that doesn't quite explain it.

my assumption was that the ritual takes place according to a certain occult logic. there has to be a contest of some kind, and the form of the content has to reflect the ways in which we deal with our terrors. i.e., the contests have to resemble horror movies, because that's the form our anxieties now take. this isn't stated clearly, but it's the impression i got.

On the other hand, it's entirely in line w/ the movie's m.o.

this is true, but like i said in the other thread, the movie would have benefitted, i think, by being a bit more sparing with certain information. the eagle gag is a prime example. would have been a lot more fun if we'd been able to wonder for a second whether or not he might make it. and the exploding hawk scene wasn't that great to begin with.

[*BIG SPOILER*] I also wish they hadn't telegraphed the sacrifice theme and presence of the old ones quite so clearly. I had a pretty good idea what was going on from the film's first images (the drawings and paintings of sacrifices seen reflected in blood during the opening credits). Thought it would have been nice if the watchers' larger motives were allowed to remain a bit mysterious. We knew everything about what was going on before the movie was half over, and that left the second half a bit flat, imo. Funny, but never terribly suspenseful or surprising.[*END SPOILER*]

eagle, hawk, whatever

this was fun, but i was expecting another layer, like maybe there are no elder gods and the corporate dudes are being manipulated by an evil CEO to make real horror films for his/her (i guess it would be her) personal entertainment, so their thin layer of moral justification goes out the window. would not have been as fun as the end of the world though.

would have preferred tentacle but NBD

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Friday, October 12, 2012 10:46 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally, can't believe they didn't go with something cthulu-y.

i enjoyed this, dont know why it had german subtitles tho

realism

would not have been as fun as the end of the world though.

that's the thing. some preachy "see, the world won't collapse if we break free of cliches!" ending would have totally justified the handful of "joss whedon thinks he's so great" grumbles this got.

the cutaways to the j-horror plot unfolding across the world were so dope

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Friday, October 12, 2012 11:28 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lil girls joyfully singing samara into a frog was the best moment imho

ya

A giant tentacle dispatched Amy Acker I think

part where dude was like "are you kidding me" before getting killed by a crawling mer-man

oh hey I'm rewatching ALIAS and in the last season Amy Acker shows up as a villain!

no spoilers

she is a secret agent (omg spoilers)

her mis-usage was one of the worst things... in that already poor season

Has Joss' penchant for redheads ever been spelt-out anywhere? I mean, yeah, I quite support it

he definitely had a lot of weird types... some actors I can't really picture in anything but whedon stuff

xp: did you see the crew of the helicarrier in Avengers?

man, wasn't really feeling this at all. had avoided spoilers, have enjoyed a lot of jokey/satirical horror flicks in the past and appreciated the spirit it was done, but it fell totally flat for me outside of maybe some of the whitford/jenkins stuff. also obviously scares/fx were not really the point but it just looked terrible, was so dim and hard to tell what was going on i started to wonder if it had been released in 3d.

I didn't like this much either other than thinking it was a neat idea. I avoided this thread and spoilers, but maybe I should have read something about it. I was hoping the movie wanted to scare me, not make me laugh.

contendo otm throughout this thread

Finally saw this. Loved it, for every reason already stated thruout the thread, really. The elevator dings, the "you're kidding me" merman death payoff, the telescoping coffee bong, all the meta meta meta. I went in expecting Whedonesque comic timing so I wasn't disappointed. Must watch it again.

Finally Watched this over the weekend, loved it. Most entertaining movie I've seen in a long time. I definitely second a monsters poll from way upthread.

Spoilercorns in a walk.

Finally saw this last night and, yes, amazing.

Bradley Whitford's delivery of the line "teQUILA is my LADY!" is masterful.

Just watched it, finally. SO FUN.

:D

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130714203334/thecabininthewoods/images/9/9b/Cabin-in-the-woods.gif

Did we ever get round to doing a Cabin in the Woods monster poll?

Wow, do I wish there were more movies like this. Totally holds up on third viewing, years (right?) later. Still say the only misstep in the entire thing is revealing the electrified grid dome thing too early for the sake of a lame CGI eagle gag, but the rest is pretty flawless and really smart.

I need to watch this again

Still say the only misstep in the entire thing is revealing the electrified grid dome thing too early for the sake of a lame CGI eagle gag

Nah thought that was good! It added to the sense of "ok what the fuck is going here" that permeated the first act.

going ON here

Yeah, but you already know there's something weird going on, from minute-one, and by the time, way down the road, they do bring in the electrified fence as a plot point, I doubt anyone would still be wondering what's going on, let alone be surprised something strange is going on. Revealing the fence early on ruins the gag later. I mean, no biggie, it's just an unforced error.

Did catch something I somehow missed the first two times, that after she kills the zombie in the basement with a knife, they send her a little electric shock that makes her drop the knife.

it's not a gag later. you're meant to be that far ahead of the characters by now, and filled with dread at how they're going to fuck up, not startled.

that's true, but the existence of the sky-fence would have come as a nice surprise during the escape attempt, had not the useless eagle gag spoiled it

189 posts later...

SPOILERS DISCUSSION

I thought it was more effective foreshadowing than ruining surprise. If you wern't told about the shield beforehand then it'd be dumb having it pop up during tha scene for the first time, it would be as if they'd just written ANOTHER thing that can go wrong, as opposed to the lead forgetting that no, running's not gonna work. action vs horror or something

stalemate. we need to have somebody not read this thread is what we need to do, and then they go and watch the version of the movie without the eagle and report back, compare notes is the idea.

I want a print of this:

http://www.nerdist.com/2014/09/hey-l-a-celebrate-joss-whedon-with-this-weekends-gallery1988-show/

http://www.nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/Gallery-1988-Whedon_08.png

rewatched this again, just as fun the second time around. kinda agree the thing with the bird is unnecessary.

Just watched it, finally. SO FUN.

― emil.y, Tuesday, June 3, 2014