You know, I just saw a different commercial for Cabin in the Woods, and I feel like it might have a Triangle feel to it. Like Scream meets that, but in the woods.
Damn, that movie should have released over here. Or at least gotten more credit, post-theater. Those of you who saw it can't tell me it wasn't about one of the five best horrors you've seen in the last five years or so. That Cabin commercial said, "When was the last time you were really surprised during a horror movie?" Well, Triangle was it for me.
I know Scott wants to bank in on making it big @ the box office with Prometheus, but goddamn it, that's not what the Alien franchise has been. From the beginning it's been a great science fiction thriller with top-notch effects and gore. That's why it's considered a horror movie just as much as it is a sci-fi film. I hate that so many films hold back nowadays just to get under that PG13 rating.
But yeah, I agree Kev. Triangle was pretty amazing for the genre...foreign films always get the short end. And I'm happy/surprised at how quick people got excited for Cabin.
But yeah, I agree Kev. Triangle was pretty amazing for the genre...foreign films always get the short end. And I'm happy/surprised at how quick people got excited for Cabin.
But you know how there are just those movies, you expect to be bad, and almost just find and put on to half ignore, turn your brain off and do other $@$%#%%@.
That's what I thought when I put on The Divide. Maybe that absolute lowest bar possible helped some? Maybe I dig depressing movies? Maybe the Darkest Hour was so bad that this looks like Glengarry Glen Ross next to it? Whatever it is, I thought this movie was really really good. A post-apocalyptic play. The less you know about it, the better. It's a bomb shelter movie with the guy from Terminator 1, Peter from Heroes, the black chief from FlashForward and the son from History of Violence.
At the very least, you will not be forgetting this movie for a good long time. 7.5/10
Really enjoyed The Cabin in the Woods, I just came back from seeing it this morning. Without giving too much away, I loved the meta commentary, it was funny, violent at times, and a really interesting take on horror movie cliches and movies.
Like I said before, I'm by no means a horror fan so I'm sure the diehards might have a different reaction. But from an overall fan of movies, it was really good. I haven't seen any horror movies in the theaters since high school (when no one could decide on a movie so we all just saw whatever crappy horror movie that was playing).. so that should say something about my interest in this one.
Plus the main girl was pretty cute.. so that's cool.
I showed my wife the preview of Ted last night, she watched that thing 4 times straight wit tears in her eyes. Safe to say I'll be seeing that in theatre.
I am so freaking worn out lately, I haven't watched @#$%. I did DVR Attack the Block, hopin to get to it. I saw maybe 5-7 minutes of it the other night, and none of it caught me, but it was the middle, so I didn't worry about it. I'll start fresh and see what the hype was about.
Got Contraband and John Carter on thumbdrive, no real motivation to get at them tho.
MrO, see you finally done come around on Avengers. Told you. Everybody that goes to see that, make sure you wait til after the credits. There will be something. (All the Marvel's have had something at the end, maybe this is just an Iron Man 3 tease, dunno)
They delayed shooting of X-Men First Class sequel so Jennifer Lawrence could wrap up the second Hunger Games late this year.
Gad damn she gotta be gettin large to pull that kinda weight.
I'll come back later with more, but if you're going to go see Cabin in the Woods, don't watch too many of the trailers, and go in fresh. That's what I did, and I felt like I enjoyed it much more because I didn't know what was coming.
In short, I really liked it, I loved the homage to so many other horror films, but I know a lot of younger audiences will A) not like it, and B) not get it.
Shame was something else, man. The first word that came to mind when the credits rolled was 'strong.' Michael Fassbender... that man is gunning for 'best current actor' status. I recommend everyone watch with at least 1 parent in the room. You know, to make it weird.
I saw three movies this weekend, each for the first time. Bridesmaids, American Reunion, and Cabin in the Woods.
Bridesmaids I didn't think was all it was cracked up to be, but I enjoyed it in the end. I thought a lot of the situations were far too severe for what the context was. The Hangover I can understand because it's a complete romp, while Bridesmaids tried to do that, but also tried to have heart as well. It just took things a little too far on both ends, it tried to be too serious in parts (like things continually going bad bad Wiig, and then $@#% going down in the plane and +$#***$% in the middle of the street). I thought that McCarthy was the funniest part of the movie. To me, Wiig, Rudolph, and Byrne were just alright. Their deliveries just seem very forced. I just wasn't digging the whole triangle, and whenever they tried to be funny, it just didn't come off well for me. The love story was enjoyable enough between Wiig and O'Dowd though. That was one of the more interesting parts of the film to me. 7.5/10.
I saw American Reunion last night, and if you liked the first two American Pie movies, this is enjoyable as well. They had tie-ins with every major character from the series, but I thought that some of the time spent on some of the main crew just wasn't worth the effort on-screen. Of all the characters, the ones I care about are Jim, Stifler, and Finch. I don't care as much about Kevin or Oz. Oz and Kevin have both been pretty dry as characters, and I just wasn't into watching Oz dance around like a little princess, although his girlfriend was fire.
The script was very fun. It's a straight homage to the previous films, and it just comes off right. Seann Williams Scott is Steven Stifler. He hasn't changed a bit from the first films. He's the best part of the film, and the payoff at the end of the film was the best part of that film. I liked the bits with Jim and his dad, but him partying was a bit too much for me, a bit too forced. If you're a fan of the first three though, this is enjoyable. As a fan, 8/10. As a standalone film, 7/10.
Now, to the essay.
Cabin in the Woods. I'm going to start off by saying if you plan on watching this anytime in the future, avoid trailers, avoid reading reviews, avoid reading anything past this paragraph. It's best to go in not knowing much about what is revealed in trailers and reviews, which I think is a tad too much. In comedies or action films, sometimes good lines or good action sequences are wasted, but with thrillers and dramas (and horror films), sometimes trailers are a little too revealing, which I thought this was. They don't reveal everything, but if you come in dry, it's much better. What I will say is that the film breaks the mold. It's unlike any other horror film I've seen before. It mashes Evil Dead with Night of the Living Dead, with sprinkles of homage to Hellraiser and other horror classics. I'm going to get into it now though, don't read ahead because of spoilers.
Spoiler [+]
I thought the film started out brilliantly. At first the credits open with some ancient hieroglyphics, and then we cut to an underground corporation where Jenkins and Whitford. Complete reversal. They're talking like they're apart of some high-up, white-collar corporation talking about rival countries in their business, and it's very light-hearted, as are all the scenes with Jenkins and Whitford. Then we see the titlecard of the film, straight up Grindhouse. We then see our group of teenagers. At first they don't seem like anything special, just a group of kids going on a little road trip. Booze and drugs, nothing we haven't seen before. But these teenagers are quite likeable, unlike most of the standard slasher characters we see in the remakes of classics. Characters are memorable, especially the scholar, the virgin, and the pothead. In a neat homage to Friday the 13th, they run into a character that warns them to stay away from the cabin, who was actually planted there by Jenkins and Whitford. He's all in the plan. It's soon revealed that each country has to sacrifice a group of people in order to appease The Director, and the ritual had never been broken. It's Jenkins and Whitford's job to make sure these kids are taken care of. They do so by manipulating the environment around the cabin so that their judgment will be flawed. They make them go into the basement, which is packed to the brim with strange relics, and whichever one of those they decide to open, that will automatically choose a scenario that the kids will have to fight off in order to survive.
The virgin picks up a diary of an old redneck zombie family, and suddenly they are reincarnated, coming up from the graves outside the cabin. Had they opened up this spherical object, they would have summoned a demon to come and wreck havoc, similar to a Hellraiser/Phantasm kind of deal. Put on a necklace, a stupidass merman would have been used. Okay, sweet, we have a zombie redneck family chasing after the college kids now, that was kind of cool, guess we know how the rest of the movie will play out. The kids are continually strung along to try and survive, and we see that Jenkins and Whitford make a complete game out of it, and it is a romp. Earlier when they were in the basement rummaging around, they cut to a scene where the underground folk are placing bets on what evil they would conjure up, everything on there from zombies to vampires to werewolves to serial killers to killer snakes to the aforementioned merman, tons of $@#% that they were betting on. It was like a betting pool for the NCAA tournament, it was awesome. These adults are completely oblivious that they are slaughtering off these kids because it's such a normality.
The slaughtering of the kids is fun, because they are getting chased around by slow moving zombies, which is a treat in itself, but they cut back to the romp at the underground lab so much that it's fun to watch the reactions of Jenkins, Whitford, and co. to the carnage that's going on at the cabin. The action itself is pretty standard stuff, but just the entire take on it is what is fresh. The satire on horror movie cliches was quite fun too. I won't spoil that because that's half the fun is seeing all the cliches that would play out.
By the end of the film when we're down to only two kids, and the climax occurs, it goes off on such a wild tangent that it's such an awkward and amazing ride, that it's a lot of fun. The cameo at the end was pretty damn awesome too. If you went ahead and read this without seeing it, sorry, I'm not spoiling everything. I know I covered a lot, but the last act I skipped because it's too fun to reveal. It's dark, it's twisted, and it's a $@**@#%# of fun.
This film won't be for everyone. Some people will want to just go see a standard slasher, this isn't it. There's gore and #+!+, but that's part of the joke of the film. I sat waiting through some of the beginning act, just wondering where this was all going. It paid off. It does what Wes Craven tried to do with his Scream films, but done so much better here. Kids won't get it, and people that don't watch many horror films may not get it either, but it's a damn enjoyable ride if you do get it. You won't see it coming, and it's damn fun. 9.5/10.
JA, I'm laughing off your Rose %@!@, but so help me God if you are implying that Scream wasn't a flat out 10 with this line.
It does what Wes Craven tried to do with his Scream films
If you refer to a sequel, or Scream 3, I won't mind too much, but if you mean the first one, in any way, I will cut you. Scream was FLAWLESS.
Sounds like Cabin is good, hopefully I'll get to it pretty soon.
Saw Contraband this weekend, eh, like a 6, make that a 7 cuz of Kate B.
I love my wife, but if Kate B came around, I might have to make some tough choices in my life.
Solid cast actually, didn't know that, but what the @#$% with that stupid accent Ribisi was usin?
Man, since I seen Ben Foster ninja kick a bunch of dudes in the living room in Alpha Dog, and then go ballistic on the phone later in that movie, I been waitin for him to break the hell out mainstream. He ain't do %@!@. Even this movie he's nothing more than reserved and mannequinish. They shoulda cut him loose and let him work.
In the horror community, Scream is either heralded as one of the best, or as a complete dud. I'm somewhere in the middle. I am referring to the original Scream. I don't expect you to have the same indifference with Scream as someone like I do. My tastes are different. Given a choice, I'll watch the 1978 Dawn of the Dead over any other film, from Rocky to T2 to Goodfellas, give me Dawn of the Dead. I love cult horror just as much as The Departed and There Will Be Blood. That's just how I roll.
The satire is so much subtler and not in your face like Scream was. The script just wasn't there for me with Scream. All of the satire in Scream is so out-of-context that it's just like a slap in the face. I don't need you to tell me that you shouldn't have sex, that you shouldn't say you'll be back, and then say it right after that. In Cabin, the satire is actually in-context with the film. It's a slap in the face to the audience to have it be so forced. That's where I took issue with Scream. It just feel so forced, and it takes you out of your suspension of disbelief.
The characters are likeable enough so that you actually care in Cabin. Well-written, and acted good enough so that you care that they stay alive, while in Scream, I don't give a rats @@+ who lives or dies. But I can say that about any of the horror classics, which is why I don't completely hate Scream. I just think it could have been better. In Scream, the characters are cardboard cutouts of cliche horror characters. Not here.
Maaaan, I dunno. I get your point about the rules, etc. But that script was brilliant. He may have gone for a few too many jokes, I do see that angle, but he nailed that story.
The opening scene (one of the best in any movie, of all time)
The backstory of her mom
The reveal of her mom in relation to Loomis
The reveal of Stu
The "narration" of Randy
The performances by Neve, Drew, Courtney, Lilliard, Rose McGowan, Randy, even the Fonze. All of them were fantastic.
I can't fight you too much yet on Cabin as I haven't seen it, lemme get to that and we'll come back, but as of right now, not even horror relation, Scream as a whole was one of the most complete movies I ever seen. I remember sitting in the theatre and knowing immediately, uh oh, this is different.
It was a complete out of nowhere experience. I can only hope Cabin is half of that. We'll see.
People are comparing it to Scream a little too much. Myself included. Take it for what's it's worth, because you'll have never seen anything like this either. It's much more clever in it's delivery. When you see subtle satire, I think that is so much better than in your face satire like Scream was. As a standalone horror slasher with a twist? Sure, fine. But it didn't completely reinvent the wheel. That opening scene? Psycho did it first and better. Point and case with the bluntness of Scream, a character is named Loomis. Loomis. Come on man, that's kind of a slap in the face to John Carpenter, who's a saint in my eyes, which tells you a lot about me..
. In a satire you name your character Loomis? One of the greatest protagonists the horror genre has ever seen? You can call it a cutesy homage to him, but not in this setting.
Slap in the face? Dude they were giving daps to those dudes. Every one of them. Jason, Freddy, Mike Myers, Perkins, everybody. The whole genre. They played off it brilliantly and I'm sorry, but having a character named Billy Loomis is not a slap in nobodies face.
The whole time they were giving you signals. The first time he comes on screen it's got the music "here comes the reaper" playing softly in the background. They throw everything out to make him look guilty, then set him up to be killed, and suddenly you realize you have no idea what's what. Then he comes back, proves he is guilty, you think you have it all figured out, and then you get kicked in the gut again.
They set up and executed everything perfectly. No slap in anyone's face, or cheap jokes or anything, the whole thing was set from Drew's scene.
And how did Psycho do the opening scene better than Scream?
Depends on what you're saying the opening scene of Scream was, the shock that she was killed? Or the dialogue? Because we established Barrymore for about 3 minutes and she's dead. Same thing happened in Psycho.
just because there's plot twists doesn't mean you should necessarily care about the plot twists. Almost every spoken word by Lillard was so in-your-face that that it really just makes the audience feel stupid. The script is so damn smug that I didn't like it. Direct references to other slasher films? Ehh. Maybe that's where we're different. I have fond memories of each of those films, and I don't need no pompous %$$ movie to tell me about things I already know.
Sitting around watching a slasher, talking about the cliches, and then repeating them right in front of me? That's not satire, that's a slap in the face to the fans that actually do like those films. Calling a character Loomis is a cheap homage. There's no subtlety in Scream, and that's where it fails for me, personally. As a slasher with some twists? Sure fine, but as a satire? Go to hell Wes. Stick to making The Hills Have Eyes, Last House on the Left, and Nightmare on Elm Street.
Suspenseful to a degree? Somewhat, but they did the whole Saw gag. Do things the audience doesn't expect, throw in twists, do whatever.
Review from Deadspin kind of addresses what you two are talking about with Cabin in the Woods vs. Scream
Sixteen years ago, I saw Scream for the first time. I loved it. Not only was it funny and smart, it felt like a game-changer: a movie that exploded all the conventions of its genre while at the same time being a really good example of its genre. By pointing out all the clichés of horror movies, Scream rewrote the rules, leveling with us by saying, Hey, we're as sick of these lame movies as you are, and we're going to do something about it. The film seemed so revolutionary that, much to my disappointment, when I went back and watched it again a few years ago, it felt, well, lame. Its once-clever dissections of horror-flick tropes no longer were fresh and edgy. Knowing the "joke" of the movie meant that none of it was very surprising or interesting. When you got right down to it, Scream was so much "about" horror movies that, really, it wasn't about anything.I bring this up because I haven't quite loved a horror film in the same way since—until I saw The Cabin in the Woods, that is. It's really sharp and fiendishly clever. There's a nagging worry that, like Scream, it won't hold up over the long run, but I'm not going to think about that now.
I don't know what that dude, or JA are talkin about. The replay value of that film is fine. Course you know the twists and what not, but the performances were just as good.
It wasn't the 5 minutes and Drew was dead JA, it was what was said, and how it was said. It was the game that was played, the voice, the questions and of course the "trick" answer that wasn't a trick at all. And the fact that it was Drew Barrymore getting cut up like that, her parents seeing the image of her on the tree, it was amazing.
Are you tellin me that when you saw it in 96, you didn't like it, and you felt made fun of by Craven? Is that what you are saying? You didn't enjoy those 2 hours? Cuz of some names, and tongue in cheek dialogue?
