Cabin in the Woods - Non-Spoiler Review
Apr. 15th, 2012 05:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSaw I decided to go see Cabin in the Woods after church today.
I will write a more lengthy review later, filled to the brim of spoilers. This is the spoiler free one.
Cabin in the Woods...
Back in the 1990s and 1980s...I used to venture into video stores, and have lengthy discussions about films with the film geek guy behind the desk. They were usually film students or people who had graduated with a film degree but couldn't get a job. Sort of like Quentin Taratino. True story - Taratino was video store clerk, just like Kevin Smith, who got discovered. He knew movies. I'm not entirely sure Taratino even went to film school - which may have been a good thing, since he skipped the indocintration or "memo".
At any rate, I remember those conversations fondly. Usually we'd discuss low-rent horror films, because video store guys rarely watch anything else. They'd give me underground vids on occasion, cult horror films - like Battle Royale. Once we had a really disturbing discussion with another geek about a French horror film entitled Irreversible.
The discussion was disturbing, because Geek1 who understood film, explained the plot, and with a bit of horror - stated there was a sequence that sent people out of room, ill.
Geek 2 was thrilled, he couldn't wait to see the movie - because that sequence sounded amazing. I remember exchanging a look with Geek1 and backing out of the room slowly.
Cabin in the Woods in many ways feels like the film that Geek 1 and Geek 2 would have made on the sly, and Geek1 handed me under the counter, with the statement - you'll appreciate this since it references all the films we were discussing and slyly makes fun of them. It's a horror geek's love-fest, trust me! You'll love it!!!
Was he right?
Yes and no. Or it is and it isn't. Depends on the horror geek, I guess. The theater was sparsely populated for a warm hazy Sunday in April. Most of the movie goers fat middle aged men with beards chewing popcorn loudly. I kid you not, they actually were. It was sort of funny. And at times, I felt as if I were watching a weird horror parody, cobbled together, by the cast of Community - except that may have had more heart and less blood.
Watching Cabin in the Woods makes me appreciate once again the brilliance of Quentin Tartantino's Kill Bill and Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, in case I didn't before. Although it is more reminiscent of Kevin Williamson and to a degree Sam Rami, who have both done the same thing on alternate occasions. Williamson with the Scream flicks, and Rami - Drag me to Hell and The Evil Dead. I can't comment on Rami's films, having never seen them, so I can only compare to Williamson. To date? Williamson's Scream is the better film. For one reason and one only - you actually care and know Williamson's characters, while Goddards and Whedons seem merely props or hollow puppets, with a couple of great one-liners between them.
It's gory, although not as gory as Rami's films (hence the reason I haven't seen them) but far more gory than Williamson's. If you don't like gore and seeing people being chopped up and tortured, you might not like this film. Although at a certain point it admittedly feels a bit like watching that final fight scene in the second to last episode of Buffy S4, Primeval, when it's just pure chaos, body parts and guts flying everywhere. At that point, it's a bit like the last scene in Poltergiest or that last bit in the Speilberg version of The Haunting, where things stop being horrifying or even mildly scary and are just well fake blood and guts thrown rapidly at the camera by squealer monkeys.
Is it a good film? Eh. It's not a bad one. It has its moments. No where as interesting as people made it out to be. And there's some nifty references to old horror flicks. And a couple of tongue in cheek comments at reality shows and the world's appetite for blood. But overall it's little more than that new steel and girder roller coaster you might leap on at Epoct Center in Disney World, with the great videos. When it's over...you crack your neck, stretch your arms, think whee, than go find another ride, possibly a water one.
I will write a more lengthy review later, filled to the brim of spoilers. This is the spoiler free one.
Cabin in the Woods...
Back in the 1990s and 1980s...I used to venture into video stores, and have lengthy discussions about films with the film geek guy behind the desk. They were usually film students or people who had graduated with a film degree but couldn't get a job. Sort of like Quentin Taratino. True story - Taratino was video store clerk, just like Kevin Smith, who got discovered. He knew movies. I'm not entirely sure Taratino even went to film school - which may have been a good thing, since he skipped the indocintration or "memo".
At any rate, I remember those conversations fondly. Usually we'd discuss low-rent horror films, because video store guys rarely watch anything else. They'd give me underground vids on occasion, cult horror films - like Battle Royale. Once we had a really disturbing discussion with another geek about a French horror film entitled Irreversible.
The discussion was disturbing, because Geek1 who understood film, explained the plot, and with a bit of horror - stated there was a sequence that sent people out of room, ill.
Geek 2 was thrilled, he couldn't wait to see the movie - because that sequence sounded amazing. I remember exchanging a look with Geek1 and backing out of the room slowly.
Cabin in the Woods in many ways feels like the film that Geek 1 and Geek 2 would have made on the sly, and Geek1 handed me under the counter, with the statement - you'll appreciate this since it references all the films we were discussing and slyly makes fun of them. It's a horror geek's love-fest, trust me! You'll love it!!!
Was he right?
Yes and no. Or it is and it isn't. Depends on the horror geek, I guess. The theater was sparsely populated for a warm hazy Sunday in April. Most of the movie goers fat middle aged men with beards chewing popcorn loudly. I kid you not, they actually were. It was sort of funny. And at times, I felt as if I were watching a weird horror parody, cobbled together, by the cast of Community - except that may have had more heart and less blood.
Watching Cabin in the Woods makes me appreciate once again the brilliance of Quentin Tartantino's Kill Bill and Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, in case I didn't before. Although it is more reminiscent of Kevin Williamson and to a degree Sam Rami, who have both done the same thing on alternate occasions. Williamson with the Scream flicks, and Rami - Drag me to Hell and The Evil Dead. I can't comment on Rami's films, having never seen them, so I can only compare to Williamson. To date? Williamson's Scream is the better film. For one reason and one only - you actually care and know Williamson's characters, while Goddards and Whedons seem merely props or hollow puppets, with a couple of great one-liners between them.
It's gory, although not as gory as Rami's films (hence the reason I haven't seen them) but far more gory than Williamson's. If you don't like gore and seeing people being chopped up and tortured, you might not like this film. Although at a certain point it admittedly feels a bit like watching that final fight scene in the second to last episode of Buffy S4, Primeval, when it's just pure chaos, body parts and guts flying everywhere. At that point, it's a bit like the last scene in Poltergiest or that last bit in the Speilberg version of The Haunting, where things stop being horrifying or even mildly scary and are just well fake blood and guts thrown rapidly at the camera by squealer monkeys.
Is it a good film? Eh. It's not a bad one. It has its moments. No where as interesting as people made it out to be. And there's some nifty references to old horror flicks. And a couple of tongue in cheek comments at reality shows and the world's appetite for blood. But overall it's little more than that new steel and girder roller coaster you might leap on at Epoct Center in Disney World, with the great videos. When it's over...you crack your neck, stretch your arms, think whee, than go find another ride, possibly a water one.
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-15 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-15 11:28 pm (UTC)I decided to go back and change my meta- so that the murderous gaze and last girl standing are explored. They are repeated constantly throughout. No meta on the film is complete without discussion of both. ;-)