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

*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

It's a tough balance, really. If they had saved it all for the end, the reveal would have been a bunch of expository talking. Then again, the Celebrity Cameo was mostly just expository talking, anyway, so who knows?

According to the imdb, someone asked the director after the first screening if there would be a sequel, and he was basically, did you just see the movie?

Like I said, seeing this again today. Anything you all want me to keep an eagle/hawk eye out for that you may have missed?

Puzzle Sphere = Fornicus, Lord of Bondage and Pain
Music Box = Sugarplum Fairy
Journal = The Buckners
Conch = Merman
Necklace = ?

no idea who the necklace might be connected with. and we have to assume that the basement was FULL of stuff we never saw, other items linked to the unicorn, the giant snake and bat, china doll killers, gorebot, etc.

also, didn't it seem that there were a great many more monsters in storage than were reflected on the betting board?

there definitely were more nightmares and sight gags in storage than we saw on the board. from what was on the board i'm quite sad we missed out on the wendigo/yeti. and the snowman.

Old school film reels were prob the werewolf, and there were def china dolls in there somewhere

forgot the film reels! okay yeah gonna have to see this again.

"actually I think we should split up... we can cover more ground that way"

from the pants-shitting thread:

http://i.imgur.com/BQaLg.jpg

husband's bulge

another view of the whiteboard

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b350/YoNoSe/IMG_0308.jpg

okay, what with "dolls" and "unicorn", that seems to cover just about everything we saw in the film. i think? except maybe the death machine...

Just back from second viewing. The necklace has some sort of spider on it.

Fave throwaway gag may still be stoner locking his car through his open car window. Also, noticed that the Ancient Ones give a little warning rumble when the Fool "dies," because they know he's not dead. Another gag is that when the werewolf sneaks up on her at the end, emerging from the darkness, the first thing you see are its teeth, which recall a certain capital A Alien ... which given the context, may not be a coincidence.

Do we see the Snowman in the assault? Wendigo/Yeti is a separate category, so is Snowman, like, a snowman? And do we see Sexy Witches?

i thought this was a bit shit.

well, total awkward boring shit for the first half (bar a couple of amusing office-worker style jokes in the lab), and then after the telephone call it switches into something much more entertaining and funny, but the first half was too long and the second half a bit too rushed. the elevator scene was the best! i would've rather more of the film was set in that giant pandora's box computer game area. the snippet of the japanese schoolgirls defeating their monster was great too, it made me want to see that film instead.

didn't feel there was much surprise value, the meta aspect is made clear straight away. the zombies were so perfunctory and it was impossible to be scared, which i know wasn't the point but you just ended up not caring much about anything in the first half.

~thee olde ones~ seemed a bit of a heavy premise for a basically good-humoured film.

felt a bit weird watching it after the hunger games which tbh "did" reality tv much more creatively.

Reality TV is absolutely the wrong touchstone for this but seriously if u enjoyed the hunger games more I just...

well it's not a direct comparison given how different they are, but by clever meta horror standards i thought cabin in the woods was pretty lacking

Cabin in the Woods seriously has nothing at all to do with reality tv.

I know this kind of horror film in and of itself isn't particularly groundbreaking, and if you went with it or didn't, that's cool, but to say it was lacking in clever meta horror standards feels a bit wtf to me.

There's nothing reality TV at all about this, though I concede it's a bit subtle. The "audience," as such, are The Ancient Ones. All the TV monitors are confusing, because it makes it seem like a broadcast, when in fact the proceedings are being ... monitored.

This movie is meta as fuck. We watch the ritualized actions (cliches) of horror films because they fulfill a primal desire, so here comes a movie that is literally about watching the ritualized actions of horror to appease something ancient. And we watch. Well, some of us do.

so you're saying there were no echoes at all of reality tv in a space where participants are bugged, technicians rig the setting to produce the most entertaining/titillating outcome and everything is captured on camera? riiiiight. it doesn't have to be an actual reality tv show to contain those very obvious overtones.

it's really really not about reality tv. It's about the experience of watching horror movies

to say it was lacking in clever meta horror standards feels a bit wtf to me.

i didn't say it lacked these, i said it wasn't very effective at doing stuff with them.

Yeah. It's not My Little Eye. If anything it's about viewers expectations for fictional Horror, not reality. They have to manipulate and influence the characters so they fit into the boxes the Old Ones expect and act stupid enough to lose.

ah right, well fair enough. would love to see a list of those btw. xpost

even typing out the "old ones" makes me cringe a bit. i mean, it's obviously about watching horror films as well, but the link is that it's about the audience gaze - how we expect to be entertained.

it just didn't do it very well! it makes its point clearly enough but not compellingly. (i mean, i enjoyed the second half but it could've been much better and the first half was just an extended longueur to set up the second half)

There's nothing reality TV at all about this, though I concede it's a bit subtle. The "audience," as such, are The Ancient Ones. All the TV monitors are confusing, because it makes it seem like a broadcast, when in fact the proceedings are being ... monitored.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, April 15, 2012 7:22 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah. and i think how condemnatory you read the movie as being depends on what you think of the ancient ones' need to be fed cliches - i said in post-2005 thread that i saw it as a gentle ribbing of the horror audience, but some see it as more damning

i think lex sort of has a point in that "reality TV" doesn't have to be explicitly invoked in order to justify mentioning the implicit similarities. it's about the idea of sacrifice, youth being destroyed (very literally in this case) in order to satisfy some primal need. this makes it a fine meta commentary on the function of kids in horror movies and the appetites of horror audiences, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to also draw connections between this and the function of shows like big brother and jersey shore.

though that's more an associative tangent than anything the film is apparently trying to address

yeah, but it seems unfair to compare to Hunger Games, which is (in a pretty cackhanded way) explicitly about reality TV.

well yes there are parallels but it's not "doing" reality tv which is what he said. There wasn't anything particularly creative about The Hunger Games either (especially considering it's premise was a total rip-off) but that's a whole other can of worms

Reality TV is specifically mentioned in the movie, but mostly as a punchline.

xpost I think it's less that the Ancient Ones like cliches, it's that they're cliches because they're sort of primal vestigial desires left over from the days of the ancient ones. Ergo, the ancient ones prefer virgins, but it's not important. They want the virgin to die last, but she doesn't have to. They want the whore to show her boobs, but it's more a preference. It's definitely a bit damning of horror viewers, that "we" crave the same cliches, again and again, only to be rewarded with sadism - what does that say about our needs? The movie couches it as the needs of the ancients, but, well..

I know Whedon has said it was conceived specifically as a response to torture porn stuff. It just got delayed and has appeared around that genre's ebb.

It's definitely a bit damning of horror viewers, that "we" crave the same cliches, again and again, only to be rewarded with sadism - what does that say about our needs? The movie couches it as the needs of the ancients, but, well..

yeah thats what i mean

i saw it as a gentle ribbing of the horror audience, but some see it as more damning

Yeah - the Ancient Ones strike me more and more as a good metaphor because they're absolute, they need to be appeased. The genre serves a purpose - the movie isn't condemning it from a high art perch ala Funny Games (a good point of ref. considering it was the very first homage in the movie; you made the Haneke ref., right Hungry?), it's very pop and proudly so, albeit detached pop. It just really wants to clear out the stagnant old tropes, squish 'em flat, let something new come along, which I think was alluded to in those final bits of dialogue.

I think by choosing a fantasy setting (vs. the reality setting of "Funny Games") the filmmakers let themselves and us off the hook a little. But then, I didn't leave wanting to punch them in the face, either. So it's a trade off.

I should also note, great use of Nine Inch Nails in the ending credits. They use NIN in the "Avengers" trailer, too. Guess Whedon is on a kick.

Heh: http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/10/11/nine-inch-nails-in-trailers/

(Sorry, back to Cabin in the Woods)

I think by choosing a fantasy setting (vs. the reality setting of "Funny Games") the filmmakers let themselves and us off the hook a little.

If it were a "realistic" context, you'd be positing an alternative, ala Haneke, and implicitly stating the genre as unnecessary. I think Whedon and Goddard love the genre, but just tired of overused tropes.

OTM. this wasn't a critique it was a love letter

or if u prefer an intervention

(but i don't prefer so: love letter imo)

Just watched it, finally. SO FUN.

― emil.y, Tuesday, June 3, 2014