Cabin in the Woods

[Marshal Earp]

Ive been meaning to check this out. Heard good things but also that it was a new hipster take on horror or something silly like that so I put it off for a while expecting to hate it.

Well I watched it on Netflix tonight. Simply one of the best horror films I've ever seen!

I can't believe I waited so long to watch this and heard so little about it. It was just a fun original horror movie experience that I can't remember having quite like it in a long time. It's not really similar to anything but I'd consider the experience most similar to how I feel about Evil Dead 2: Scary, entertaining, and fun.

I would ask for a sequel but if you've seen this you know it isn't possible.

[GiveMeGore]

I actually just picked this up on dvd friday......pretty cool flick. I don't think I enjoyed it as much as you, but as far as theatrical horror goes, its as about as good as its gets these days....

[Vamp Vixen]

Yeah, I can't say I actually liked this one.  It started off pretty great but then went downhill after the first half.  I just didn't find it as wonderful as everyone else, I guess.  To each his own...

[Splatterscribe]

Yeah, I can't say I actually liked this one.  It started off pretty great but then went downhill after the first half.  I just didn't find it as wonderful as everyone else, I guess.  To each his own...

Seconded, Vamp. Big time. I'll add that it isn't even that original. Cabin in the Woods actually borrows the central theme of John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness:  The idea that society's love for horror could/does cross the dividing line between fiction and reality with ultimately severe consequences. Another movie that "Cabin" borrowed a premise from was Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which preceded by many years Cabin's conceit that audiences continued love for horror (in this instance a specific horror icon) kept said horror contained and that - once the films got watered down or stopped being made altogether, losing that audience and effectively stopping the story from playing out as it was supposed to - the true evil was able to escape and manifest, directly affecting reality. The difference is that both In the Mouth of Madness and New Nightmare were better, smarter films that actually manged to conjure up some legitimate scares.  Would it have killed Whedon to provide more than a few mild shocks? There were episodes of Buffy the Vampire slayer that were scarier than Cabin in the Woods.

Another of my big issues with is that the flick attempts to satirize archetypes of the genre for much of it's running time then, in the last act, cops out with a full on subterranean bloodbath that - while pretty to look at in a gore-soaked-insanity kind of way -  commits the same sin as the movies Whedon and his associates were taking a shot at: It substitutes gore and flashy effects  for characterization and atmosphere. And I'm sick of this free pass people have been giving this flick with the "oh, that's the point, to illustrate where films usually drop the ball in the narrative  and sacrifice their story to the violence by doing the same thing here"  train of logic. No, what happened was that the writer ran out of ideas. If you want to criticize a genre , you'd better show that you can actually make a movie that raises the bar of quality and outshines whatever came before in that genre or you come off as pretentious, which is how I felt about this movie by the time the credits rolled.  Oh, and the ending sucked. It really, truly sucked. The last shot of Cabin in the Woods attempted to evoke the same nihilistic vibe as ,say, the last shot of In the Mouth of Madness (which, ironically, unfolds in a movie theater during the showing of a horror film) , with the difference being that, while the ending of "Madness" was actually fairly unsettling, the one in Cabin came off as unbelievably hokey. The freakin' effects in that scene weren't even any good, just a load of CGI crap that looked like leftovers from the Clash of the Titans remake. Ugh. Overrated is a kind word for this flick. It certainly isn't the game changer critics made it out to be.

[Marshal Earp]

Yeah, I can't say I actually liked this one.  It started off pretty great but then went downhill after the first half.  I just didn't find it as wonderful as everyone else, I guess.  To each his own...

Seconded, Vamp. Big time. I'll add that it isn't even that original. Cabin in the Woods actually borrows the central theme of John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness:  The idea that society's love for horror could/does cross the dividing line between fiction and reality with ultimately severe consequences. Another movie that "Cabin" borrowed a premise from was Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which preceded by many years Cabin's conceit that audiences continued love for horror (in this instance a specific horror icon) kept said horror contained and that - once the films got watered down or stopped being made altogether, losing that audience and effectively stopping the story from playing out as it was supposed to - the true evil was able to escape and manifest, directly affecting reality. The difference is that both In the Mouth of Madness and New Nightmare were better, smarter films that actually manged to conjure up some legitimate scares.  Would it have killed Whedon to provide more than a few mild shocks? There were episodes of Buffy the Vampire slayer that were scarier than Cabin in the Woods.

Another of my big issues with is that the flick attempts to satirize archetypes of the genre for much of it's running time then, in the last act, cops out with a full on subterranean bloodbath that - while pretty to look at in a gore-soaked-insanity kind of way -  commits the same sin as the movies Whedon and his associates were taking a shot at: It substitutes gore and flashy effects  for characterization and atmosphere. And I'm sick of this free pass people have been giving this flick with the "oh, that's the point, to illustrate where films usually drop the ball in the narrative  and sacrifice their story to the violence by doing the same thing here"  train of logic. No, what happened was that the writer ran out of ideas. If you want to criticize a genre , you'd better show that you can actually make a movie that raises the bar of quality and outshines whatever came before in that genre or you come off as pretentious, which is how I felt about this movie by the time the credits rolled.  Oh, and the ending sucked. It really, truly sucked. The last shot of Cabin in the Woods attempted to evoke the same nihilistic vibe as ,say, the last shot of In the Mouth of Madness (which, ironically, unfolds in a movie theater during the showing of a horror film) , with the difference being that, while the ending of "Madness" was actually fairly unsettling, the one in Cabin came off as unbelievably hokey. The freakin' effects in that scene weren't even any good, just a load of CGI crap that looked like leftovers from the Clash of the Titans remake. Ugh. Overrated is a kind word for this flick. It certainly isn't the game changer critics made it out to be.

I pretty much disagree with everything you said. This was original and to compare it to New Nightmare and In the Mouth of Madness is a stretch. I see mild similarities at best. If anything it reminded me more of the film Waxwork than either of the two you mentioned. Ive been reading from the camp of people who claim that this film is not original by comparing it to dozens of randomly different films with pretty much nobody agreeing or offering the same comparisons. Which only further solidifies how truly original it is.

As for the effects I also disagree. I loathe CGI more than anyone here and this films were not half bad nor was it overused. Many of the monsters were done with make up not CGI. Van Helsing this was not.

The climax was simply awesome. Seeing all those homages to prior horror movie monsters, how can a horror fan not love that? I have no idea.

But to each his own I guess.

[traumamama]

I pretty much disagree with everything you said. This was original and to compare it to New Nightmare and In the Mouth of Madness is a stretch. I see mild similarities at best. If anything it reminded me more of the film Waxwork than either of the two you mentioned. Ive been reading from the camp of people who claim that this film is not original by comparing it to dozens of randomly different films with pretty much nobody agreeing or offering the same comparisons. Which only further solidifies how truly original it is.

As for the effects I also disagree. I loathe CGI more than anyone here and this films were not half bad nor was it overused. Many of the monsters were done with make up not CGI. Van Helsing this was not.

The climax was simply awesome. Seeing all those homages to prior horror movie monsters, how can a horror fan not love that? I have no idea.

But to each his own I guess.

I don't get the hate for this movie either.  The only comparison I can see with other films is the whole *wink wink* attitude to the audience.  I've only seen In the Mouth of Madness a couple times, but I've seen New Nightmare at least a dozen and I just don't think they're at all comparable.  Those movies are not by any means horror-comedies, while Cabin clearly is.  Cabin's goal isn't to scare the audience, although I disagree that none of it is scary, at least for me the first time I watched it.  Shaun of the Dead works so well because it's a comedy first, but they achieved a horror movie's pace and added in a few scenes that would fit right into a legit horror.  I think Cabin achieves the same, it's funny and it's fun, but it's paced like a horror and there are some scenes that work.  They work for us because we recognize the influence, they work for the standard horror crowd because they're scary.

I love the end, I love every character, I love how clever and original the movie feels, and dear lord do I love the merman.

[Lord J]

I really loved this movie, too. I never really took it as trying to be terrifying... just a good time for horror fans. As far as originality, I compare it to 28 Days Later; there was absolutely nothing original about that movie, but it combined previously used ideas in a way that managed to make it one of my favorite movies.

A personal pet peeve of mine is when one movie in a franchise tries to fictionalize previous movies in the franchise, i.e. New Nightmare, Seed Of Chucky, Blair Witch II, Hellraiser: Hellworld, etc. But Cabin in the Woods did the opposite. It took storylines that we are familiar with as being fiction, and added a realness (albeit comedic) to them by making them part of something much larger. I do agree with Splat on the last scene, but the rest of the movie rocked IMHO.

[Lord J]

BTW... this movie is now available to stream on Netflix.

[WL Paynecraft]

Loved this movie.