Cabin in the Woods review

[FaxModem1]

I think this review hit upon why it is impossible for me to like Lovecraftian horror. The line about humanity being a conquered species, who can only appease our masters. If that is the case, then why is the story not about over throwing these masters? Because to me, that would be the only story worth telling in such a situation. The story of surrender and appeasement is such an anethma to how I think, I cannot see why anyone would accept it. And if you're going to tell me about why these things are so beyond us that any resistance is pointless, don't bother. That is the very problem I have with the concept. At best, I'd enjoy a fanfiction of it where a Jaegar or Voltron or Godzilla comes in and kicks Cthulhu's ass.

I can accept a story where the bad guys win. I like Saw, The Usual Suspects, Fallen, Star Trek Voyager. The bad guy winning because they're just smarter than the heroes, or even luckier, can make for a good story. But I absolutely cannot enjoy a story where there is no hope from the beginning.

I always had the headcanon that they were buying time to develop technologically to fight these things. A few thousand years ago, the best things you had to fight any of this was a sword or spear. Now we have bullets, forcefields, containment cells, and research on how to contain the monsters. A couple hundred years, and we may be able to fight them.

It's a bit Salvation War, but that's my headcanon about it.

[CrypticMirror]

Bad news, I'm still alive. Good news, more hospital tests tomorrow (I swear I'm just gonna have them install a zipper up my side, let them reach in and take what they want when they want). More bad news, I didn't like this movie. Good news, I liked Chuck's review.

I liked parts of this movie but to me it always had two major flaws. The second of which, and the least serious, is that it goes too far at the end to show off. It would have made a more effective horror movie (and not have lost any of those "deconstruction" points) if it had ended without Stoner Dude committing genocide. I don't mean give it a "happy" ending, but leave it ambiguous if the guy who was so gung ho about ending the world earlier on the journey to the cabin would now go through with it when given the ability. Leave that ambiguous and it is a more psychologically troubling movie. Make it explicit so that you have a neat "twist" and it becomes a one note movie that would have worked as an original series Outer Limits episode, but has no repeat viewing value. It becomes all about that twist ending (which is why I'm generally not in favour of twist endings at all), once you've seen it then you've seen the movie's meat.

The first, and far more serious flaw in my opinion, can be summed up in four words: "A Joss Whedon Film". Joss Whedon's personal fanbase is so utterly offputting and unpleasant that they ruin any movie associated with them. Whedon's works range from the watchable to the unremarkable, and I'm not going to touch the ongoing rumours about his personal life that surfaced earlier this year just his works, on their own merits his works are okay and "meh, fills a gap" but his fanbase treat him as a second coming, his works as infallible works of genius even pre-release, and any criticism of him or the works as being personal insults that must be avenged. Worse still, his fanbase insists on attacking other works as being inferior to the Mighty Joss' works or insist that actors who worked with him are the only actors to be considered for any role. It really makes talking about his works unpleasant and not much fun to watch. I really hope he is serious about retiring now.

Anyway, that is why I don't like this movie. Even with the second flaw of trying to be that bit more clever than it was, it would still be watchable. That first flaw, that is fatal to my enjoyment of it though.

[Nevix]

I think this review hit upon why it is impossible for me to like Lovecraftian horror. The line about humanity being a conquered species, who can only appease our masters. If that is the case, then why is the story not about over throwing these masters? Because to me, that would be the only story worth telling in such a situation. The story of surrender and appeasement is such an anethma to how I think, I cannot see why anyone would accept it. And if you're going to tell me about why these things are so beyond us that any resistance is pointless, don't bother. That is the very problem I have with the concept. At best, I'd enjoy a fanfiction of it where a Jaegar or Voltron or Godzilla comes in and kicks Cthulhu's ass.

I can accept a story where the bad guys win. I like Saw, The Usual Suspects, Fallen, Star Trek Voyager. The bad guy winning because they're just smarter than the heroes, or even luckier, can make for a good story. But I absolutely cannot enjoy a story where there is no hope from the beginning.

Hmm. You might like the webcomic Soul to Call:

It IS Eldritch Horror, but it's focus is on the survival of the main protagonist, Avril, and the mysterious kid she meets during a delivery mission named Eli.

It doesn't focus on the overthrowing of the eldritch monsters, because their mere presence and arrival broke the world. It focuses not just on how they survive, but indirectly on WHY Avril survives beyond the beginning of the story.

I don't want to spoil the reasons why, as that's one of the best parts of the comic.

Also: I get not liking "there is no hope! All is hurk bleh ded and you can't change that!". I find it depressing, and boring, most of the time.

[FakeGeekGirl]

The funniest thing to me is seeing people trying to "even out the math" on the ending of this movie by pointing out all the unintended aftermath besides the sacrifices themselves like the fact a lot of Final Girls are probably in prison under suspicion of murder in the disappearance of their friends and that a lot of the kids are probably smart and would have changed the world and such.

That's great, kid, but "the entire fucking world including those people who are sacrificed" is still on the other side of the equation. You cannot even out the math, no matter what.

So the debate is not about math. It's about where "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" ends and where an unconscionable evil begins.

There's an interesting comparison here to "Those Who Walk Away From Omelas." In it, there is a prosperous city where everything is wonderful except for one thing. Through magical means not elaborated on, the city's prosperity has to be sustained by the suffering of a random child, who is kept living in their own filth on barely enough to survive until they finally die of neglect and then another is chosen. Everyone in this city who comes of age goes to see this suffering child and has to choose if they stay in the city and continue to prosper off this kid's torment or walk away from it.

Three key differences here: Most people don't know and will never know what the Company is doing at these Facilities, and therefore can't make the choice, and secondly, if someone does make the choice, they're screwing over not over themselves but everyone else in the entire world, most of whom will have no warning and no choice in the matter, and thirdly, this isn't something humanity is chosen, it's something forced on them. The sacrifice is imposed by the Ancient Ones, with the price of refusal being destruction of the entire world.

In the end, as awful as it might be ... yeah I have to side with Sigourney Weaver. Not that I'd be terribly happy if it were my head on the chopping block, so to speak, so I can't really blame Marty for being like "Fuck this noise." But ... if I'm going to die either way and I can save the rest of the world? Just do it quickly please?

But of course that's looking at the situation the way it played out close to the wire with everyone set on doing it this way no matter what. What if the had accepted it as a necessary evil, but only a temporary one? What if there were other, more heroic facets of the company looking for a way to fight back against the Ancient Ones and eventually break the cycle by putting them down once and for all? Like of course they didn't get into that one in this story because of the metatextual aspect of the film, but it would make an interesting sequel or midquel. Like Chuck, I'd be on board for that.

[CharlesPhipps]

I'd volunteer to die to keep the Great Old Ones/Cthulhu from killing the human race.

However, the company was taking severe sadistic evil joy from their job and using innocents for seemingly no other reason than they're awful awful people.

I also am of their mind their system was destined to fail to begin with because the Great Old Ones are probably going to get sick of things anyway.

[Winter]

Ah yes 2012, possibly one of the best years in cinema and had some of the most frustrating endings, Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed 3 and Cabin in the Woods. Seriously how is it possible that three different stories could all have such equally "are you kidding me with that ending" in a row? Also, I just realized that all three involved beings that are almost god like, Juno in AC3, the Ancient Ones in Cabin and The Little Blue Troll in ME3. Did anyone else notice that?

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

There's a lot I could say about horror films. I'm more or less on the same page as Chuck when it comes to horror violence, and I also agree that the psychological aspects that are most compelling part of the genre. Unfortunately, the genre is filled with pointless schlock. The vast majority of horror films that I would consider to be actual classics (e.g. Psycho, The Birds, Jaws, Alien) could also be classified as something other than pure horror. Even the films that are usually considered to be among the very best of the genre (e.g. Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saw) are still often B-grade in production value, writing, and acting. Those films have a couple of interesting components that puts them ahead of most of the rest of the pack, and they're noticeably less violent than many of their sequels, but they still have obvious limitations as actual films. It's arguable that the standard mechanics of a pure horror film- the constant need to "punish" certain victims, overuse of archetypes, over-the-top gore, and so on- are not conducive to good art.

So, I don't think I'm enough of a fan of the genre for this film to have the intended effect on me. This does have the definite advantage of being clever (which is to be expected from Whedon, of course) and actually trying to say something. The violence is in this case integral to the plot, and sometimes some extreme violence/gore can be necessary to tell a story in the most effective way. I'm a big fan of The Thing, for example, and admire its practical effects. The psychological aspect/mystery is the real selling point of the film, but it wouldn't be the same without some of the more brutal aspects. Cabin in the Woods fulfills the intellectual/psychological aspect of it, so for me that justifies the violence for the most part.

[Rodan56]

I thought the guy who was insisting zoology had one was betting for the Unicorn.

Or maybe it was the raping tree?

The book says he's from chem, but he could be just turning in a monster from a different department on their behalf.

[Steve]

Count me in as another viewer who dislikes "all is hopeless, the best we can do is buy time" style fiction. I'm of a mind to headcanon the end of the movie with one single, glorious sound: VWORP VWORP VWORP, as a familiar blue box starts to fade into existence in front of Marty and Dana.

[Deledrius]

I always had the headcanon that they were buying time to develop technologically to fight these things. A few thousand years ago, the best things you had to fight any of this was a sword or spear. Now we have bullets, forcefields, containment cells, and research on how to contain the monsters. A couple hundred years, and we may be able to fight them.

But of course that's looking at the situation the way it played out close to the wire with everyone set on doing it this way no matter what. What if the had accepted it as a necessary evil, but only a temporary one? What if there were other, more heroic facets of the company looking for a way to fight back against the Ancient Ones and eventually break the cycle by putting them down once and for all? Like of course they didn't get into that one in this story because of the metatextual aspect of the film, but it would make an interesting sequel or midquel. Like Chuck, I'd be on board for that.

That's a pretty cool idea, and it's consistent with the film. Those horrors that the sacrifices face used to be unstoppable foes. Now they're living in cages (almost) entirely under control of the humans. The movie shows how tenuous that control was, but there's no reason to assume that things weren't improving, and not just on the side of the organizations in charge of making the sacrifices happen. The facilities were failing because the people they were pitting the monsters against had gotten better about combating them too. Japan had a perfect record, but when it finally failed, it was because kids were capable of defeating that well-oiled machine and its monster.

It could work pretty well as a midquel too, to learn about the R&D department and what they were up to this whole time. It could even shine new light on why there was such a ticking clock; it wasn't just Ancient Ennui, but if there was a secret war going on and the sacrifices were buying time with diminishing returns, that could be compelling film. Together with Cabin in the Woods, it would set up a sequel to both films as a finale to the trilogy that would address winning or losing that war in a world where Ancient Horror has taken reality apart at the seams.