Go see Cabin in the Woods right now! *No more spoiler tags! You've had weeks! Discuss openly!

ianunderhill wrote:
Coldstream wrote:
Spoiler:

How did Joss Whedon not cast Nathan Fillion as the Pinhead ripoff guy with the sawblades in his head? That would have been hysterical, and a great nod to Firefly/Dr. Horrible fans!

Spoiler:

There's always availability/money issues at play in casting, but beyond that, I don't see what Firefly or Dr. Horrible have to do with a film that plays on horror tropes. Joss Whedon gets enough flack already without making references to his own work where it isnt appropriate or particularly meaningful. Furthermore, presenting an obvious analogue of a well-known copyrighted character changes from "Oh, that's supposed to be like Pinhead, I get it" to "Wink wink casting?" and is distracting. I'm happy it wasn't done.

Spoiler:

I see your point, but I don't think that references to his other work need to be be appropriate or meaningful. He's known for casting the same people (the leads Fran Kranz and Amy Acker in this movie are Dollhouse and Buffy/Angel respectively) and I have no doubt that a huge proportion of people going to see Cabin in the Woods were there purely because it was a Whedon production. I know that I wouldn't have bothered with it had Whedon not been involved. Further, the movie was full of classic Whedon stupid humour that's exactly in line with his other works. Nathan Fillion as the Pinhead nod wouldn't have changed anything for Joe Q. Public, but would have been just one extra grin for the Whedon fans.

Also, since we basically can't say anything about this movie without spoilering it, I vote that we just put "This thread is chock full of spoilers. Go see this movie!" in the OP and then talk normally.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Was it more or less cringe inducing than Audition? That's about as far as I go.

Cabin in the Woods never comes anywhere near horror of the kirikirikirikirikirirkiri scene. It's gorier, but doesn't have nearly the same emotional impact.

Yeah, although I haven't seen Audition, I have seen other Takashi Miike movies, and I would venture to say that there are few things more cringe inducing than one of his productions.

nel e nel wrote:
Alien Love Gardener wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Was it more or less cringe inducing than Audition? That's about as far as I go.

Cabin in the Woods never comes anywhere near horror of the kirikirikirikirikirirkiri scene. It's gorier, but doesn't have nearly the same emotional impact.

Yeah, although I haven't seen Audition, I have seen other Takashi Miike movies, and I would venture to say that there are few things more cringe inducing than one of his productions.

Audition is much more restrained and controlled than the usual Miike fare. Which makes the horror so much worse when terrible things start happening.

Right, just came back from a second viewing.

Spoiler:

She definitely vomits blood during the party celebration scene. The screen is covered in blue hues, but what she spits up is definitely red. Those "chunks" might actually be bubbles.

I'll have more to say tomorrow. Either way, DEFINITELY holds up a second time, especially with friends that don't know what to expect.

Oh, also...

Spoiler:

The make-out-with-wolf scene is a lot shorter when you know nothing happens, though still rather "wow, she actually did that"

Thanks for the re-recon, ccesarano. Somewhere deep down, I knew I wasn't going all Tipper Gore on this movie's ass. If one can indeed imagine such a thing.

Spoiler:

As for the make-out-with-wolf scene, I'm not surprised. I, too, was expecting the craziness to start rolling there, with reckless bitey abandon.

Loved it.
Especially the part where it went all every cannibal corpse album at once.

Paleocon wrote:

Was it more or less cringe inducing than Audition? That's about as far as I go.

There's just a small number of American movies that would surpass Audition in that regard.

ranalin wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Was it more or less cringe inducing than Audition? That's about as far as I go.

There's just a small number of American movies that would surpass Audition in that regard.

Good. Because that movie scarred me for life. Every time my wife gets upset at me, I have nightmares that I'll wake up to her sawing my feet off.

Alright, so some further notes about how well put together this film is.

Spoiler:

When you think they kill Topher and they pull the blood handle for the "offering", everything starts rumbling. The employees translate it as the "customer" getting really excited. This is actually the hint that, no, something went wrong, but there's little reason to translate it as "Topher is still alive". Any first viewing is basically going to be "Oh, stuff's happening. Oh, they just told me why." It's an intentional misdirection, basically trying to make sure you believe they bothered to kill Topher (okay, he's Barney in the movie, but f*ck that) so that when he appears, you're delightfully surprised and fired up because, well, he's the favorite, duh (would Joss Whedon have it any other way?).

A bit ironic, but I can't really remember any of the character's names except Barney and Curt, so I shall be referring to them as their archetype: Whore, Athlete, Scholar, Virgin and Topher.

The transformation of the Whore into a sexually free individual is rather clear and expected, as is the Athlete becoming an Alpha Male. Topher, in fact, spells these out. However, they are much more subtle with the Scholar and Virgin. After they read the Latin, the Scholar suddenly starts wearing glasses. At no moment earlier in the film does he have them even on his person, yet for several scenes in the remainder of the film he is wearing glasses. It makes him look less like a regular joe and more like an "egg head", so to speak. Just the same as the Athlete was never wearing a high school sports jacket until roughly that time frame. Similarly, as Scholar and Virgin are starting to make out, she pauses and says "I've never done anything like this before". Now, at this moment she actually looks to the side with an expression of "What? What am I talking about?" And there's even a moment of audience recognition, as the very first conversation she has with another character involve her discussing a sexual relationship with a Professor. Hell, our introduction to her has her lacking any pants. So for that brief moment you can see that she is slowly being turned into the generically pure virgin, even if she isn't really. It's all very subtle, but the only characters they spell out are Athlete and Whore.

The first time I saw the film I was with my brother, and he went and got snacks while the whole Mordecai and Eagle-Smack-Shield thing happened. So when they were talking about crossing the tunnel, I had to lean in and tell him what happened earlier, which diluted the effect of what happened next. Seeing it again with my friend and cousin, where we all knew what happened earlier, changed everything. Somehow, this moment that is shot completely serious, even the soundtrack, became funny as Hell. I don't know if it was just us since the rest of the theater wasn't really laughing with us, but hearing Chris Hemsworth sit there saying "I'm gonna bring in Choppers and some really big guns!" just made it, because the whole time you're thinking "No you won't! You're gonna die!" So the second he hit that shield we just started laughing.

Thing is, I'm not sure if it was supposed to be funny. If they never showed the Eagle earlier you might have been surprised. But they did show you the Eagle, and I have to believe that it had two purposes, one of which was for this scene. So that you would know that Chris Hemsworth was going to die. But instead of being surprising or sad, it was funny as Hell.

Curious about what other folks think about that.

I assumed the first time that it was the snake that grabbed Amy Acker towards the end of the film, but it might have actually been a tentacle.

I caught it the first time, but I still love the "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" touch of sending an electrical shock from the knife to the Virgin that causes her to drop the weapon. They don't call much attention to it, no one questions it, it just happens as a response to yet another "why are you doing something stupid?" moment.

I might have had other things occur to me, but I cannot recall at this moment.

It doesn't happen often, but my love for this film has increased on the second viewing. It's also good to know that, once you know what's going to happen, the violent parts are a bit less cringe inducing. I can see why a lot of you guys more experienced with horror called it mild.

Though there was one other thing...

Spoiler:

According to my friends, there's another "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" detail when the Whore is being killed. Evidently after the Bear-Trap-Flail (Flail-Trap?) is pulled out of her back, you get a quick view of her from behind and you can see her ribs through tears of her flesh. I don't even remember the opportunity for such a shot, as the only one from that angle I recall was when she got sliced open. That was pretty well silhouetted, too.

Cess:

Spoiler:

regarding the Hemsworth motorcycle jump: I had actually forgotten that the shield was there when he made the attempt, so my reaction was more of a 'WTF?!?! Oh sh*t, that's right there's a force field there...BAHAHAHAHAHAAA!'

Regarding the archetypes: my buddy totally saw that opening driving sequence as an homage to Scooby Doo:

Hemsworth = Fred
Whore = Daphne
Topher = Shaggy
Virgin = Thelma
I guess the Scholar would be Scooby Doo, but that was the one hole in that interpretation.

And they are all driving in a big 'mystery van'.

nel e nel wrote:

Cess:

I snickered.

Paleocon wrote:

I haven't seen it yet and am not complaining. I just want to know what level of gore there is so I can make an informed decision about whether this is the movie for me.

There's a wife my site uses. Kids-in-mind. It describes, in sometimes spoiler-ific detail, what you will get. How many f-bombs, scatalogical references, and so on, as well as killing by x, killing by y, mutilation by z. It's quite exhaustive.

And of course based on that, I had to watch this alone, as I do most horror movies. I thought a couple scenes were over the top, but I didn't feel like it ventured into "torture porn" territory like Saw or several other movies of that genre the last decade or so.

Good comparisons to Tucker and Dale on the previous page, gore-wise. And that one we didn't check the web site for, and boy was my wife mad about watching that one. But it was free on Amazon Prime and had such good reviews...

Just saw this. It was amusing in the way only an intentionally campy horror movie can be, and moreso than most simply because the writing isn't braindead.

Fun time at the movies. I don't know if I'd gush about it the way many have, but it was at least worth a watch.

*Semi important note: I saw this without having ever seen anything but a very short like 30 second teaser that didn't even show any of the characters a long long long long long while ago, and one picture of the cast. I never saw any of the full trailers so other than what's in the title I really had no information whatsoever about what the movie was really about.

If I'd watched the trailer I'm pretty sure I would have had significantly less fun in the theater and would have come out with more of a "eh, could have waited for blu-ray" attitude.

Blind_Evil wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

Cess:

I snickered.

Where's stranglebade when you need him

Spoiler:

I found both the eagle and the dirtbike smashing in to the force field funny. The eagle was 75% surprise 25% laughter. The bike was a perfect,"Don't do it guy, don't do it, don'toooooOOO DAMMMMNNN!" With 100% laughter. The abyss he plummets in to is ridiculously deep, quite funny.

My favorite moment was watching the two of them scroll by the other monsters and thinking back to them in the basement and how close they came to picking all their other choices.

The bone I pick: The scientist/cult place had CLASSIC Death Star Syndrome. A button that requires no code, no key, is guarded by one guy with a pistol, and it releases all the monsters to the inside of the facility? You can create a massive forcefield around a whole camp site but your only defense in the facility is weak metal and a couple platoons of riflemen? No lock it down and gas the baddies situation? How did they capture/create those monsters in the first place?

It wouldn't have angered me, but the rest of the movie is so well written that it pissed me off that they used such a cop out to get to the prisoners rule the prison scenario.

Loved the movie, I'm not a horror film buff but I've seen enough and this one goes on the short list. One of my favorite things was the pace, at no point was I bored and able to pick apart the story.

Spoiler:

So back to the third act with the monsters running loose in the base. I feel like they really missed a great opportunity to make it more interesting by not just having soldiers come out to get slaughtered. If you were hosting many paranormal monsters, you would have ways of fighting them besides guns(which are really not very effective). Wave two should have been "experts" such as monks, priests, guys with boomsticks, little girls filled with love, etc.. They would still lose because of the mass diversity of the monsters let loose, but it would have made the base feel a hell of a lot more competent. One giant snake and the whole place goes to hell? But yet a room full of school children were able to figure out the weakness to their evil spirit and defeat it.

My wife and I also had a discussion how we were at first disappointed that it was the "zombie redneck torture family" but really when it comes to most other monster types, they have obvious weaknesses you use to fight them. Zombie family is nearly indestructible and spreads out to allow for many different scenes.

So, who sabotaged the tunnel cave-in trigger?

Toddland wrote:

So, who sabotaged the tunnel cave-in trigger?

The eagle hitting the wall is my guess.

Spoiler:

My best guess is that it was Barney/Topher. They said it came "from above", and when they typically discuss "above" they mean above ground. He had discovered that electrical thinger, after all. However, they mentioned they never received the order hours ago to blow the tunnel, so it's just a guess really.

Toddland wrote:

So, who sabotaged the tunnel cave-in trigger?

ccesarano wrote:
Spoiler:

My best guess is that it was Barney/Topher. They said it came "from above", and when they typically discuss "above" they mean above ground. He had discovered that electrical thinger, after all. However, they mentioned they never received the order hours ago to blow the tunnel, so it's just a guess really.

Agreed with spoiler.

Spoiler:

He was clearly tinkering with wires to get the elevator working. Must have accidentally shorted something in the tunnel demo.

Spoiler:

At first I thought they were going to go with God or an angel but they never insinuated anything else from the major religions so I dropped it.

I do however think there is a strong case for "fate".
But really its the same person that monkeyed with Tophers ganja to make him immune to all the tricks pulled by the organization.

Why are you guys spoiler-tagging things again?

Why are you guys spoiler-tagging things again?
Spoiler:

Wrath of Gaald

fangblackbone wrote:
Why are you guys spoiler-tagging things again?
Spoiler:

Wrath of Gaald

Gaald can bloody well read the thread title then.

What? Don't blame me! The title clearly states Spoilers! I agree with the thread creators decision.

Sorry, force of habit.

Stele wrote:
Toddland wrote:

So, who sabotaged the tunnel cave-in trigger?

ccesarano wrote:
Spoiler:

My best guess is that it was Barney/Topher. They said it came "from above", and when they typically discuss "above" they mean above ground. He had discovered that electrical thinger, after all. However, they mentioned they never received the order hours ago to blow the tunnel, so it's just a guess really.

Agreed with spoiler.

Spoiler:

He was clearly tinkering with wires to get the elevator working. Must have accidentally shorted something in the tunnel demo.

Yeh I think they even went right from the scene where they said the power shortage came from above to the scene where he's tampering with the wires.

I finally went and watched it last night! I went into blackout after I saw this thread title and figured out that Joss Whedon was behind it. Even after all the hype, it still delivered. It was masterfully done and will be a day one blu-ray purchase. Since I'm late to the game, I won't go into any specifics as I'm sure they've all been mentioned.

Well, I guess I'll say my favorite part was the merman. How could it not be?!?

"He had the conch in his hand!"

Grenn wrote:

"He had the conch in his hand!"

There was soooooo much great setup for the final joke.