Entry 5: RE: "Cabin" - 'May the Gods Be Ever in Your Favor'

Posted by: Bradley Redder


Okay. As I said before: I think that you and I feel very similarly about Cabin. We both enjoyed it as a piece of mild entertainment, and we both seem to agree that the last twenty or so minutes could have been lopped off completely with very little complaint. So my vehemence over aspects of it puts you in the awkward position of having to stand up for a movie that you don't seem to find worthy of strong defense. You liked it, but are more than willing to point out its flaws, so I'll lay down my sword. I'll just say that I was only so aggressive about it because I wanted to like it--No, I did like it. A lot. And then it just fell apart and squandered all of its potential. Seeing it a second time made that fact even more annoying for me. I stand by my original position, but I'm willing to concede that it's entertaining, and sometimes that's enough.

However; there is one thing I want to bring up that struck me as a little strange while watching Cabin. Did you happen to notice how remarkably similar it was to The Hunger Games? Ditch the meta-horror premise, and it's almost the same thing. Young kids are chosen from the outside world and essentially asked to kill or be killed in the service of preserving world order. They're transplanted to an artificial setting whose environment is controlled from the outside by people trying to please someone... In the case of The Hunger Games, that is the masses, or maybe the world leaders (it was never really all that clear), and in Cabin the characters are made to suffer in order to satisfy the godlike "ancients."

I found myself distracted by these comparisons throughout the entire viewing experience, and was thinking about how two such similar films could be released three weeks apart, whether it was coincidence or a reflection of where we are culturally... Is this be the beginning of a trend of cynically paranoid film plots? I later found out that Cabin was actually filmed in 2009 and got shelved for a bit, so maybe this is all moot. But even if it's simply coincidence, it's a bizarre one.

Entry 4: RE: "Cabin" - Chill Out.

Posted by: Chad Van Alstin

Settle down, Brad. There's no reason to be that upset over a film that doesn't present itself as anything more than mere entertainment. I don't see there being a buildup to anything beyond a promise that Cabin in the Woods will be a really strange movie -- and that promise was kept, even if I didn't always like it.

With a film like this, the fact that I laughed isn't enough to earn it a perfect rating, but it counts for something. This isn't on the same level as films like Scream or Drag Me To Hell, both of which are done with a sophisticated level of filmmaking not seen here.

This isn't to say that Cabin is poorly made -- that wouldn't be a fair statement. I just think that Cabin went for some cheap laughs, and other films in the genre take a much darker approach. Black comedy is present in Cabin in the Woods, but certainly not to the degree of the Evil Dead or Scream series.

I suppose your point about classifying this as "horror" is correct, but I don't think that's really important. I'm not a huge fan of genre classifications in general, and I use the 'horror-comedy' label only to set a point of reference. 

A film like Army of Darkness doesn't contain any scares, but most people will still classify it as a horror film. This is probably largely due to the supernatural subject matter. I follow suit only to give a point of reference, though I agree that most people won't find Cabin in the Woods to evoke any emotions normally associated with horror. Unless of course they are really made uneasy by gore, since Cabin has a ton of that.

Entry 3: RE: "Cabin" - Fun Schmun

Posted by: Bradley Redder


Yeah, yeah. Cabin was funny and clever and I got some kicks out of it, which I have already mentioned. My problem is not that it's not funny, but that it's not funny enough. In the end it just bothers me more than it entertains me. I'll admit that part of the reason is a little unfair and involves the gushing reception by its audience rather than the film itself. Everyone seems to think that this is a great film, that it's brilliantly conceived. And just to clarify: by "everyone" I obviously mean the seven things I've read on the Internet. A little cleverness goes a long way with people with screen names like "rapmetalrulz069" and cause movies like this to be hailed as "genius." The early comments I heard on this were so overwhelmingly positive, which could be because Twitter messages aren't long enough to include the "but" clause after "Cabin in the Woods is so fucking awesome..." So I've taken it upon myself to represent the absent clause of every Tweet I've read about Cabin.

Okay, that came out a little more spiteful than I had intended when I started, but oh well. And again, I recognize that it's not exactly a fair angle to argue given that it has nothing to do with the film itself, but its audience instead. But at the same time I feel like this movie is targeted to that type of audience, the one that hides behind Internet aliases and can only speak in hyperbole, so maybe I should be more spiteful and perhaps take another cheap shot at another ridiculous genre of music.

As for what is actually in the film... Not only do I say it's not fun enough, but I also say fun just gets in the way. In my review I mention that there is a cockiness inherent in this premise, and it is that cockiness which drives a lot of the humor (fun). Goddard and Whedon spend the first half, the good half, of the movie calling out horror conventions and making fun of them, and it's great. It made me believe that they had something new to bring to the table, something we hadn't seen before. But when we get to the end they don't have anything to say, nothing new, nothing we haven't seen. Just more of the same and, in fact, quite literally everything we've seen before. That's just not good enough; that's not fulfilling the promise they make in the beginning, and I can't let them off the hook simply because I laughed.

Also, Cabin is being referred to as a "horror-comedy," but where's the horror? This doesn't deserve to be brought up in the same breath as Scream, which also poked fun at horror conventions, but embraced them in a way that allowed it to do exactly what it was parodying, and it even did so effectively, doling out legitimate suspense and scares in between laughs. Cabin reveals its big secret so quickly that it kills any potential for suspense. Seeing puppeteers staging deaths based on horror conventions is funny, but it removes the opportunity to pretend like we don't know exactly what is going to happen so we can be thrilled and entertained while it does happen.

So comedy cancels out horror, yet I still have to watch teenagers struggle to live instead of be entertained by whatever Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford are doing in the control booth. For shame!

Entry 2: RE: "Cabin" - We're all on the same side.

Posted by: Chad Van Alstin

I think you and I agree more thank you think, Brad. I'm just more willing to interpret my laughter as meaning I was entertained by the film -- I think you should do the same. Look, this is far from a perfect movie, but I really had enough fun to justify my 3 Star rating.

It's true that I love horror-comedy films. I am a huge fan of the Evil Dead series, and I think Cabin in the Woods has some of that charm. So, yes, I praise the film for its finer moments, but I do take issue with the total anarchy in the second half.

Your criticism of the final act is correct; I just didn't find it funny either. I think we are in agreement there.  The humor started moving in a direction more befitting of an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The laughs certainly slowed down for me when the gore and clever dialogue was replaced with  "dude, that's so random" stoner laughs.

For me the moment where I felt the movie really went downhill was the sequence where we find the characters riding in a magic elevator, heading to the HQ of their puppet masters. This sequence, and the scenes that follow, are what I was referring to when I said that I felt the writers wrote themselves into a corner.

What the hell was all of that about? It's after the elevator ride that all the random chaos started happening. It just feels like they had no idea how to tie the stories together, and really didn't have a clue how to end the film. It was all rather unnecessary and annoying.

So, let me be clear: my praise of the film comes packaged with complaints. There's a whole lot wrong with Cabin, but I still had fun while the good times lasted. I can't recall another movie this year that had me laughing in the theater.

My rating reflects my level of enjoyment -- I had fun watching this movie.
                        

Entry 1: RE: "Cabin" - Ha-Ha-Hang Me

Posted by: Bradley Redder


Well, I have to admit that that was not the reaction I was expecting from you. I chose The Cabin in the Woods after seeing it last week because I was sure you'd overpraise the Hell out of it and spark some lively discussion. Instead it looks like you had the same initial reaction I did walking out the first time, but fortunately a second viewing hardened me to its superficial charms and revealed how nonsensical it comes across as once you know exactly where it's heading.

Needless to say I was less impressed as I walked out a second time, and reading your review I do find a bit of that overpraise I was talking about. Given how much I actually did find myself laughing (even the second time) it may seem a little unfair to ask if you were really that impressed by its humor. But, uh, were you? Didn't you start to find it a little exhausting after a while. When it was focused, it could be very funny, when it was directly or, even better, indirectly poking fun at horror conventions and audience expectation, it was brilliant at times, like right before Chris Hemsworth is going to jump the canyon to get help we know he will never get, but he still gives the obligatory No Quit speech: "I'll come back with helicopters and big fuckin' guns; if I'm wounded I'll crawl... Whatever happens, I will come back." It was sublime. But then there were so many moments, like the one directly after, when I could feel Goddard and Whedon trying so hard to be funny, shamelessly pointing out their own cleverness and ruining the joke because of it... Hemsworth jumps and it looks like he'll make it, but instead he hits the invisible wall that we all knew he was going to hit, because we already saw the same thing happen earlier in the movie.

In your review you mention that "There are moments so out of place, so completely unfitting of the rest of the film, that it seems like they were added because the writers had written themselves in a corner." I'm curious to know which moments you're talking about. I would almost say the last twenty minutes fit that criticism, but at the same time I feel like that was what Goddard and Whedon really wanted to get to in the first place, and it's a shame that it fails, because the idea is kind of amazing... a hundred different ghosts, monsters, zombies, etc. loosed upon the corridors of an underground military base (or whatever that place actually was). It's just executed poorly. It goes on either far too long, or not nearly long enough. It was so mindlessly presented that I felt like I got it after the first wave of monsters, but more came, and then more, but not enough to get to the point at which it's so relentlessly absurd that I could do nothing but stand up and applaud. No. Instead I just realized how bored I was, looking at shot after shot of cartoonishly blood-covered walls. And that was before the who-gives-a-shit expository scene with Sigourney Weaver. Ugh.

Am I wrong?

Chad's Take: "The Cabin in the Woods" - 3 Stars

The tagline to The Cabin in the Woods implies a level of deception: “You think you know the story.” I can honestly say that this film did not meet my expectations, though I did really enjoy it. It’s true that the story of teenagers isolated in a woodland setting, only to picked off by evil beasties, isn’t exactly a new idea for the horror genre. Luckily, the film doesn’t follow any formula very closely.

There have been several recent releases in the horror-comedy genre, most of which are satirical representations of classic horror formulas. When I arrived at the theater I expected to see a parody film along the lines of Drag Me to Hell or Wes Craven’s Scream. While it’s true that I was treated to some bloody laughs, Cabin in the Woods is not done in the same vein as the films listed above.

I think it is fair to classify Cabin as a horror-comedy offshoot, but saying that doesn’t describe the unique approach fully. It’s really hard to describe Cabin in the Woods, but I think that’s exactly what the filmmakers were going for.

So, what’s it about? Well, it’s really hard to say. The narrative features a story riddled with conspiracy and murder, all of which is presented in an extremely light-hearted tone. On the surface it seems like this is all adding up to a shocking “twist” of an ending. Without spoiling anything, I can promise you that this isn’t the case.

Brad's Take: The Cabin in the Woods - **1/2

The Cabin in the Woods ends the way I imagine the idea for it was conceived: with two people smoking a joint. If only everything in between had been as fun as the night Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon thought up the image of a unicorn killing a man with its horn surely was.

I don't know how much of the plot I can reveal before spoiling it, but one of the problems is that I'm not really sure if it actually presents anything to spoil beyond varying degrees of absurdity. Cabin is a "horror" film that follows a ritual conducted by a faceless group of people, acting on behalf of the world, sacrificing five teenagers to "the ancients" via horror film conventions. With the help of the Chem Department and stupidity-inducing drugs, five teenagers are turned into stereotypes meant to send up the horror genre, so five intelligent college students become a jock, a nerd, a slut, an idiot, and a virgin on their way to a secluded cabin, which essentially becomes the staging ground for their deaths. This is all puppeteered by two guys (Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, who almost save the movie from itself) sitting behind an endless control panel, adjusting everything from lighting and temperature to the release of pheromones in the form of mist in the forest.

At once high-concept and incredibly simple, the premise is pretty clever, but flawed. There's enough in it for a drunken dorm-room riff, maybe even a comedy sketch, but stretched out to feature length, it just collapses in on itself. At first it had me lodging all the right complaints... Really? The rundown abandoned gas station with the creepy redneck attendant? Bor-ring, only to realize that that was exactly the point. And I would have been glad to remain the butt of the joke, because unfortunately with the gradual revelation of its mock, meta premise also come the limitations of it. Goddard grossly mismanages the amount of screen time given to each set of characters, spending much of it half-developing doomed teenagers in an artificial scenario as opposed to their puppeteers, with whom the real threat lies. Once it's revealed that this scenario is engineered with the predetermined outcome that these teenagers die, there is no real opportunity for suspense. It's like an M. Night Shyamalan film was condensed into the first act, only we're asked to go through the motions of another hour after the twist ending, with thrills that are as artificial as the cabin itself. 

Divided somewhere between homage and derision, Goddard and Whedon attempt to lampoon a genre while trying to add a legitimate entry to its canon, an impossible endeavor with such a flawed premise. Though the death scenes aren't very graphic, this, in a sense, devolves into comedic torture porn, where we're just waiting to see what clever way each character might die, only none of them are all that clever. And that pretty much sums up the film: not clever enough to justify the cockiness inherent in its concept. It's fun to watch Goddard point out cliches, but it gets tiresome once we realize that he doesn't really have anything to say about them beyond re-enacting them with a ridiculous framework and an over-the-top final act, which though it does afford some truly inspired moments and absurd killer unicorns, it's just not enough.