The Cabin In The Woods

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28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
The Cabin In The Woods (Drew Goddard)



I FREAKING LOVED this movie!!!

The Cabin in the Woods is a spin on the horror genre from writer's Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, without giving away the spoilerish parts of the plot, I'll simply say that it involves 5 friends who fit the horror movie stereotypes (Jock, Slut, Party-Guy, Nerd, Virgin) who go to a cabin in the woods to party and get away from it all. Trouble is, it's never really safe to go to a cabin in the woods is it?

To be honest, the less you know about this film, the more awesome it will be. I felt that the trailer gave away a bit too much of the twists and turns one can expect from the film, but at the same time the image of a bird flying into a giant forcefield is what will set this film apart from the generic horror films that hit the theatres today. The Cabin In The Woods tells you upfront "You think you know the story..." but of course you don't. This is Joss Whedon after all. Fans of Buffy and Angel will get a kick out of this, as actors from that universe make their way into this film.

It's been a long time since I've had a lot of fun at the movies and the Cabin in the Woods was a lot of fun. It's an odd movie to sell, because a lot of it has to be kept secret to make the second half of the movie exciting and fresh. It blends a few genres together, the two main ones being horror and comedy and it works perfectly. Both Whedon and Goddard worked on Buffy and Angel, which was a balancing act of genres, so they knew the right tone to get here and they nailed it. They take the clichéd aspects of every horror film and put it in here, to brilliant use. We actually get to see reasons for stupid character mistakes, which made that whole aspect of the film fun.

Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford have great chemistry together and stole every scene they're in. I would love to see these two character actors work together again, they made this film really fun and they are a joy to watch on the screen. The young actors, including Thor himself Chris Hemsworth, sell the clichéd horror characters well enough that you actually get upset when someone bites the dust. In most horror flicks I can't stand any of the characters, here I was rooting for all of them.

There are some truly hilarious moments, I am dying to talk about them, but doing so would ruin the surprises. All I can say is that I was laughing throughout the entire film, I cheered, I clapped and I enjoyed myself. There are a lot of horror references, most notably The Evil Dead, so it's fun to spot things here and there. Horror fans I think will really get a kick of of this flick and I pray it does well, cause it's the most fun I've had in a long time.

Drew Goddard's first directorial gig, he had a lot on his plate and he managed to pull off one hell of a film. It helps when you have someone like Joss Whedon in your corner, but I applaud him for being able to pull off the tone perfectly, I imagine the script to screen process was identical. This is a very clever script, with laughs, gore and surprises at every corner. When you have Goddard, whose worked on Buffy, Angel, Lost and wrote Cloverfield, teamed up with partner Joss Whedon who is one of the best writers working today, then you know you're walking into something special. I can't recommend this flick enough. When it comes out, you must go see it.

Just makes sure you don't know much about it beforehand, or it might ruin the awesome factor.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews



Movie Forums Insomniac
Excellent review. I've been looking forward to this since 2009 and finally I'll get to see it. I can't wait and I shall definitely review this myself.
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\m/ Fade To Black \m/
Im so excited for this film, im really looking forward to seeing it Great review mate
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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
To be honest, you'd have to dig horror to REALLY enjoy it, at least as much as I did. I hope people get a chance to go see it and like it when it's released about a month from now.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
I've been hearing people either love this film or hate it. I'm kinda surprised at the amount of people hating it, I can understand them not thinking it was as hyped up as it was suppose to be, be hating it?



DISCLAIMER: Not really a review, moreso an instant reaction, but hopefully impetus for discussion ALSO SPOILERS DONT READ BEFORE VIEWING. Frankly, learn as little as possible if you haven't seen it and wish to.




That sort of iconoclastic disgust intertwined with traces of hope with which artists have been concluding apropos humanity, perhaps incredulously to many of them, never really hit society on the head the same way safer convictions have. It’s for this reason that it is said everything is fine, “that is our illusion,” annexed by Voltaire. I know it seems absurd starting a review of an American horror film this way, but if The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, or even Méliès Infernal Cauldron, was a beginning of the horror film, then Cabin in the Woods is its silence until a new invention is served.

To surmise, we have a universal agency, in presumably only highly developed countries, that has constructed the most complex system of sacrifice/visual entertainment for the ancient gods of the earth. In this moment of time we only meet five of those potential sacrifices, who set the stage for a most predictable horror beginning. Yet, it’s rather clear Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon are brewing a different stew so as the rest unfolds the viewer must be aware that they are unaware...which is exactly the “illusion.”

The basic theme seems to be free will. Yet the free will is only based on what is believed to be truth, and since truth is relative so are our choices. The agency watching this whole thing go down, slightly manipulating the circumstances where they think they must, along with a begrudging military servant (who probably serves as the reference to the choice each Nazi had to make). Their manipulating includes pheromones to entice different reactions, cameras in any place imaginable, and, naturally, control of every nightmare creature in history. The pawns choose to enter the circumstance where they again choose to engage in a particular object that “awakens” one of the hundreds of creatures that will potentially kill them for the sacrifice.

The most obvious element is how outrageously meta this becomes. Every single genre rule or stereotype is referenced, questioned, and discarded. Even the audience is nearly as duped as the puppets in the game, which may disgruntle some, but even more disgruntling would be the rather apparent misanthropic tone throughout the second half of the film. You watch these pitiful pawns terrorized, and then you watch the agency watch them, sometimes in anticipation of a nude scene, sometimes in celebration of killing them all, all well aware this has been going on possibly forever in as many countries as possible and that everyone involved just “gets used to it.” That’s one hell of a condescending stab at the horror fandom, but it’s brilliant.

It’s peculiar that America is the only country whose pawns don’t usually succeed at surviving; we see glimpses of other countries’ games where the pawns found a way to succeed. It’s only this time that America does it right, a stoner and a virgin ending the world to rid it of human kind. The film may only come across as a Scream for smart people to some, but it really does acknowledge essentially everything people think about, such as the symbolism of god and, so it seems, inherently depraved religion, such as the sanctity of life and the catalyst/riposte of our actions whichever cards we’re dealt, such as mythology and potential reality for anything imagined, or, a little simpler, an interactive method of filmmaking that not only questions its own validity, criticizes its fans, or creates rules to break them posthaste, but also a method of filmmaking that is able to do so, have fun with it, and ****ing let it go.



Well I ain't seen nothing from this thread other than Suspect's headline. I can't wait.



I was worried the thing that happened to Yoda would happen to me so I basically just read your headline Sus and left it there. I knew winter wrote a review but I won't read his until after I see it next week or whenever it's out.

EDIT - I did read something about
WARNING: "dunno if this is a spoiler or not" spoilers below
Hunger Games
...that's not spoilery, is it?



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Not really.

I purposely made mine with no spoilers in it, cause it ruins the experience. I will say this though, you should go in knowing the film is self aware.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
"Critical essays" tend to be for a more academic crowd. That doesn't mean that they're pretentious though. My daughter just wrote an academic essay discussing how the Monkees' Head was a major Vietnam War flick and contradicted The Green Berets, as well as it being a complete deconstruction of pop culture in 1968. If I'm not mistaken, she called it DaDa, We're the Monkees: How a Manufactured Band Became Social Commentators. The assignment was to write an academic essay, so she had no choice.



"Spoiler alert: Usually posted at the beginning of an article; intended to advise potential readers that details about plot turns, narrative twists, cast members, character names, endings, and post-credit footage may be revealed." -- From the proposed 'Dictionary of Common Sense and Courtesy for Movie Reviews.'