| 1 | * How was the Japanese ritual meant to end? If the technicians consider it a failure because the spirit was channeled into a frog and no-one died. |
| 2 | ** With the death of the children, same as the one we watch over the course of the film. |
| 3 | |
| 4 | * Why's a werewolf one of the monsters? Of course, it's a monster, but a werewolf is only in wolf-form when the moon is full and on every other day of the month the werewolf leads a normal (human) life. Does that mean the controllers found a way to turn a human permanently into a werewolf? And that also implies, judging by the werewolf-stories I read that there are possibly more werewolves running around freely in the world, judging by the fact that Dana is still alive after getting mauled (and now a monster too, by that logic). |
| 5 | ** It's not uncommon for movies and other story telling mediums to screw around with classic monsters so they have different rules to how they work. In fact, we have tropes all about different types of the same monster showing up in different works, [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent including werewolves]]. It's entirely possible that, in the Cabin in the Woods universe, werewolves are different in ways that make them more like the other monsters shown and easier to keep locked up and use for the purposes of the ritual. Alternatively, nothing really says that just because the werewolf turns back into a human means they ''have'' to have a normal life; they could just keep them there against their will even in human form, and they just hold the rituals on the days when it's not in that form. |
| 6 | *** Or maybe the werewolf is ''one of the Organization personnel'', and works happily for one of its departments when he/she isn't locked up in a cube and covered with fur for a few days. They could get paid leave for full moon days, and a bonus if they're actually selected. |
| 7 | ** For that matter, there's no reason to assume that Cabin-Verse werewolves can transform at all, or pass on their condition by biting people. They could just be lupine humanoids with a savage temperament. |
| 8 | *** While there ''are'' certainly many variants of werewolves who are human most of the time save the full moon, there's also the lycanthrope subgenre of "Wolf Man", which is a man-wolf hybrid which stays monstrous 24/7, and in some scenarios can infect others with their affliction via bites in the same way a werewolf classic can. Some works of fiction will use the term "werewolf" interchangeably, even on monsters who more clearly fall into the "Wolf Man" category, as the Old English origin of the word "werwulf" can be translated in modern word to "man-wolf". |
| 9 | ** And in one of the more recent werewolf films at the time, ''Film/DogSoldiers'', the werewolves were so experienced they could transform willingly and happily hunted humans. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | * And continuing from above: when Dana is a monster now, what's going to happen to her? Or does it only count when she's transformed? |
| 12 | ** Maybe in the sequel she becomes a werewolf, kind of echoing another Whedon written story: ''Film/AlienResurrection''. And that's how she survives long enough to do whatever she does in the sequel. |
| 13 | ** She was wounded pretty bad and she's likely to die from her injuries before anything else can happen. |
| 14 | ** Lycanthropy being transmissible by bite was pretty much an invention of the old Universal movies, to tie closer to the smash success of Dracula. It's not really present in older werewolf folklore, so it's quite possible that these werewolves can't inflict someone else with lycanthropy. Even if they can, Dana's unlikely to survive all her various injuries (to say nothing of the end of the world), so it's probably not a concern. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | * When they go down to the basement, there are hundreds of artifacts, each of which summons a different monster. It's very entertaining to watch the Facility staff betting on the teens, but doesn't this undermine the meta-commentary on horror films? The only horror film with a similar "room full of scary artifacts" is ''Film/TheConjuring'', and the scene in that film doesn't serve the same purpose. Wouldn't it be more accurate to have them enter a room full of artifacts which all have the same theme? After all, in ''Film/TheEvilDead1981'', they don't find the ''Necromonicon'' amongst otherworldly puzzle boxes or conch shells... |
| 17 | ** Think of it in terms of horror fans going to Netflix and ''picking out which movie to watch'', skimming through all the titles, promo images and blurbs, and it works. |
| 18 | ** Alternately think of the studio trying to decide what they're going to put into the movie based on what's most popular at the moment. |
| 19 | ** One could actually see the Controllers doing this. "Why isn't the vampire artifact staged yet?" "Vampires are on the way out. We're done with vampires. The vampire artifact stays in storage." "Wait, why are we putting the zombie artifact in? We haven't used that in thirty years!" "Zombies are back, zombies are in again. We're doing zombies this year." |
| 20 | ** Maybe the Ancient Ones give the Director like messages or visions of what artifacts to put in the basement, as a kind of supernatural version of Netflix's "you watched X so you may like..." the artifacts in the basement are a pot luck of what the Ancients would ''like'' to see this ritual, kind of like how you have a playlist and then set that playlist on random to "surprise" yourself, but maybe a few of them are staples, because it is mentioned that Maintenance pick the same thing every year (hillbilly horror seems to survive every decade after all), and the Merman, because Hadley apparently picks that every year (it's probably a reference to obscure monster films never really getting off the ground). |
| 21 | |
| 22 | * The Ancient Ones are a stand-in for the typical horror fan, which is why they get all pissy at "rituals" (i.e. films) which subvert the formula. One problem though, despite how wildly the events of ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'' have differed from the average by the time Marty and Dana reach the Facility, apparently the Ancient Ones will be satisfied as long as Marty dies before Dana does. But the sort of typical horror fan the film satirizes would actually be much more interested in a film/"ritual" with a non-subversive tone and ambience, rather than something really out-there in which the whore dies first & the virgin last, wouldn't they? The film itself implies this by referencing films in which that order isn't maintained, such as ''Film/TheEvilDead1981'' and ''Film/{{Alien}}''. |
| 23 | ** The Ancient Ones aren't necessarily representative of the ''typical'' horror fan, so much as the ''stereo''typical one. As in, the schlock-addicted blood junkies that don't ''want'' what's on the screen to force them to think, and whom the cheapest and most formulaic horror films cater to. |
| 24 | *** But, typical or stereotypical, it comes to the same. Those fans wouldn't have liked ''Cabin in the Woods'' just because the right order was maintained (if it had been), it was already too weird & deconstructive. |
| 25 | *** In-universe it makes sense that it might not matter because there seems to be a contract-like agreement between the controllers and the ancient ones. The humans only have to follow certain rules, so unless the ancient ones thought to add a "no complicated plot twists" rule, the contract would be upheld as long as Marty died. |
| 26 | *** Again from an in-universe perspective, even if the sacrifice is already boned by going so far OffTheRails, the Facility is still going to try and complete on the off chance they can stop the world from ending. |
| 27 | *** In the novelization, Sitterson is well aware that there will be new demands placed upon humanity as a punishment for the story-gaffes, even if they ''do'' kill Marty in time (e.g. there might have to be ''two'' sacrificial rituals per year), but he's too busy trying to complete '''this''' ritual to worry about the next one. |
| 28 | *** It's a ritual. It has to be done in a specific order. The gag is that horror movie stereotypes exist ''because'' they are required to follow the strict template of this ritual. So I think you're kind of looking at it backwards here. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | * Every time one of the archetypes is killed, one of the Controllers pulls a lever which releases a blood-like substance. Clearly, this cannot be the actual blood of the victim as one is a grease-spot at the bottom of a chasm, another is at the bottom of a deep lake and Marty isn't really dead. So, if it is just animal blood or whatever, with a significance that is more symbolic than real, then why do they have to actually kill anyone? Can't they just fake it? |
| 31 | ** The Ancient Ones are clearly aware of what's happening aboveground, else there wouldn't have been any need to compel Jules and Curt to have sex outdoors, "giving the audience what they want". Releasing blood onto the carvings of the five archetypes was probably just window-dressing; it's the actual suffering and death that the gods are into. |
| 32 | ** The blood that's dispensed onto the engravings may have been collected in advance from the facility's own personnel. Blood sacrifice doesn't always come from other people, in real life ritual traditions; giving some of one's own is common too, and would fit with the words one of the controllers spoke about "humility and fear" as he triggered the blood's release. |
| 33 | ** It's also possible that the blood was collected from the five kids in advance, as part of the Controllers' efforts. Considering what else they did, getting some blood 'donated' by the five isn't out of the range of their shown abilities. |
| 34 | ** The entire land is controlled by the facility, down to their ability to control lights, trigger cave-ins, pipe chemicals, and so on. The idea that they can collect the blood of their victims doesn't seem at all far-fetched given the amount of control over the area they have (not the least of which including an invisible air-transparent electric force field). The reason the Old Ones got upset when "Marty's" blood was flown into the outline, it ''wasn't Marty's blood.'' The Ancient Ones should have been upset that Marty wasn't dead, which they would have known immediately. As for "the audience," it's perfectly conceivable that the Ancient Ones only see what the Facility is able to capture with its cameras and transmit to them. The Facility is the producer of the entertainment. |
| 35 | ** The Ancient Ones didn't react until the blood was released because ''the Facility blew it'', not just because Marty was still alive. Curt and Holden were still alive at the time also, and it's still several hours until dawn, so there was plenty of time left for the remaining Buckners to find and kill Marty after he defeated Judah. It's the fact that Sitterson and Hadley signified the Fool's death prematurely that's the ''real'' breach-of-contract on the yearly-ritual-sacrifice arrangement. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | * If the people backing the operation are as influential as they seem, why are horror movies allowed to be made? I mean, a big factor behind the failure rate probably is due people becoming genre savvy thanks to watching genre films. |
| 38 | ** Genre films are a representation of a cultural id - the rituals follow the cultural assumptions, rather than being set in stone. That's why Japan's ritual is so different from the American one. In other words, they couldn't change the genre films without having to change the ritual. |
| 39 | ** I think horror films are simply part of the warning signs given to the victims. Horror stories have always basically been cautionary tales, if they are told sitting around a campfire or in a theater, it is no consequence, the purpose is the same. |
| 40 | ** That, or they ''fund their operation'' by releasing recordings of the sacrifices, and marketing them as schlock horror flicks. It's not like they can list their expenditures on a congressional budget report, after all... |
| 41 | ** My interpretation is that the universe that gets destroyed at the end isn't ''our'' universe, it's the SharedUniverse every horror film takes place in, and, as we know, that universe doesn't ''have'' horror films, because otherwise you could ask that question about pretty much every horror movie ever. |
| 42 | *** There's a good reason why no character references any specific horror movies. Marty is GenreSavvy, but not in a way that comes from specific knowledge of horror movies. In fact, when he finds the cameras, he assumes he's on a reality show. And while it's not of the question to see a horror-themed reality show in our own universe, at no point does he or anyone else realize how similar their situation is to the plot of a horror movie. |
| 43 | *** Marty ''does'' know what a zombie is, however: he calls the severed arm of the Buckner he dismembered that, twice. So the concept of animated dead bodies isn't ''completely'' unfamiliar to people in-Verse. |
| 44 | ** Alternately, it could contribute to the victims having to choose to ignore the warnings. |
| 45 | ** It could be a stipulation from the Ancient Ones. They like the irony that the victims are to blame for their deaths: similarly they want each culture to be at blame for creating their version of the ritual. If horror movies were banned, horror tropes would fade from peoples memories and the sacrifice would become boring. Therefore horror movies a required to be made. |
| 46 | ** And allowing horror movies (or other horror media for that matter) to exist doesn't mean they won't be able to find sufficiently-gullible sacrifices: it only means they'll need to select their subjects from young people who ''don't happen to like horror movies''. Considering how thoroughly they appear to have infiltrated their five victims' lives in order to set them up, the Facility's people can certainly snoop at their candidates' purchasing habits and learn what sort of fiction they prefer. |
| 47 | ** Maybe the films in this verse are treated as the very first "harbinger"? For activation of some artifact in the cellar to be a "punishable trespassing", it is necessary to establish that this is a transgression in the first place - and make it known, however vaguely, to the future victims. The horror films allow to do precisely that. |
| 48 | |
| 49 | * How did the Japan scenario fulfill the requirements with a room full of nine-year olds? The Scholar, the Athlete, and the Virgin, sure - but the Fool and the Whore? |
| 50 | ** The director says that the ritual varies across cultures. They didn't need to fulfill the same archetypes for theirs to go properly. |
| 51 | ** Which, conveniently, means that this film not only explains away hundreds of formulaic ''American'' schlock horror-film plots, but also equally-trite plots used in countries that favor a different formula! |
| 52 | ** Whore in the sexual sense probably is not possible (except in some anime, yikes!) but as in bitch it is possible, as anyone familiar with J-Horror cinema knows. |
| 53 | ** It's specifically following a different formula closer to J-horror tropes. You see a StringyHairedGhostGirl straight out of ''Film/TheRing'' or ''Film/TheGrudge''. And the child protagonists could be reminiscent of ''Film/DarkWater'', where the ghost is specifically targeting a little girl. |
| 54 | |
| 55 | * The Director says that, while the Ritual is different in every culture, in each one someone always has to die horribly and they have to be young. I'm not terribly familiar with World Mythology, but is the grisly murder of a person aged child to young adult really a staple of every culture's fables? |
| 56 | ** Almost certainly. Those stories would be told to teach children morals - e.g. don't hitchhike, don't go too far away from home, don't eat the red berries et cetera... Urban legends and the like aren't exclusive to modern Western cultures. |
| 57 | ** And the shock-value of having someone young and fit, or very young and very innocent, die messily is a trope storytellers have employed to crank up a tale's tension since the dawn of language. |
| 58 | ** Direct your attention to pretty much any Grimm's Fairy Tale and the folklore tales they're based on. If the protagonist isn't an actual child, they're certain to be a very young adult. |
| 59 | |
| 60 | * How did Marty survive getting stabbed in the back with a knife? They had medical readouts for each of the sacrifices, why didn't someone notice he's still around? |
| 61 | ** Possibly their clothes had been laced with sensors that monitored their vital signs. In Marty's case, being stabbed might have inadvertently disconnected the sensor, creating a false impression on the readouts that his heart had stopped. |
| 62 | *** It can't be their clothes, since we saw their vitals during the lake scene, where the characters weren't wearing most of their clothes. If it is in their clothes, it's definitely not in the guys' shirts, since they can take them off for a swim without flatlining the readout so an upper body stab would do nothing. |
| 63 | ** Also, the stab probably wasn't placed in a fatal area. As long as the knife doesn't hit anything vital (heart, lung, spine), and because we're running on horror movie logic, he would be able to shrug it off. |
| 64 | ** I think it was actually a trowel, based on Marty's later comments. So it's probably a little harder to do damage with a trowel than a knife. Maybe it never went past his ribs, or glanced off a shoulder blade. |
| 65 | *** As for the medical readouts, Marty messed with their wiring. That's why the tunnel hadn't been blown in time. So maybe he managed to cut off his own medical read-out. |
| 66 | *** The Medical readouts are seen really clearly at 49:23, Jules is dead in position #1, marked red, and Marty is in position #3. At 56:59 into the film, when Lin is walking in to ask about the tunnel not being blown, you can see that there are two red columns, #1 (Jules) and #3 (Marty). Maybe Marty was injured in a way that broke his monitor; it doesn't seem like he'd have already messed with the wiring (which makes me wonder WHO was messing with the upstairs power. Maybe Mordecai was finally fed up with the whole deal? |
| 67 | ** Also, the order seems to be that the Fool dies second last. Given some WMG saying the monsters understand the order, maybe they knew not to kill him yet? |
| 68 | *** Except that the controllers accept Marty's "death" as normal. The only requirements voiced by the Director are that the Whore dies first and the Virgin is left for last. |
| 69 | ** Someone did notice Marty was still around: the ancient gods. When Hadley pulls the lever to start the blood flowing into the etching of The Fool, the entire building starts to shake. Hadley and Sitterson misinterpret the shaking as the gods enjoying the show ("Getting pretty excited downstairs") when in fact they were protesting Hadley's hastiness in assuming The Fool was dead. |
| 70 | ** It's surprisingly hard to stab somebody to death. Especially with a trowel. It must have hurt a lot but Marty proved to be stronger than a zombie. Most of the blood on him was probably the zombie's. |
| 71 | ** The Buckners are described as "pain worshippers", so perhaps they like to kill their victims slowly and as painfully as possible. They deliberately make their first attack non-lethal when they can. Note that the first surprise attack on Jules stuck a knife in her ''hand'', not her back or neck. |
| 72 | ** Marty's also been on weed for most of the day, so maybe he was seriously wounded but the pain hasn't set in yet, and would have once the drugs wore off. |
| 73 | |
| 74 | * The one that gets me is the bear-trap-to-the-back thing. Even by horror movie logic, how is that not a fatal wound? Shouldn't that like shatter your ribs or something? |
| 75 | ** If I recall correctly, it wasn't a whole bear trap, it was only one half of the jaws. |
| 76 | ** Probably depends on what condition the bear trap is in. A hundred years is enough time for most machinery to stop working right. |
| 77 | ** Physics, mostly. Bear traps are effective by way of speed and sharp teeth. You spring the trap and it snaps shut on typically something limb-like. The teeth bite in deep and the shearing force sometimes breaks bone. But when it hits a broad surface, the travel distance on the jaws of the trap isn't very far so it doesn't get a chance to build up a lot of speed. The contact surface is the whole arc of teeth, so the force is distributed. The teeth themselves aren't going to go in very deep, but they are penetrating skin and muscle. The tension trying to force the jaws together will keep it from being pulled out easily. In theory, of course. |
| 78 | ** The Buckners were into TorturePorn, and the bear-trap was intended as a capture implement. Pa Buckner may have deliberately weakened its springs and dulled its teeth so it'd snag without killing, because [[FateWorseThanDeath you can't torture a corpse]]. |
| 79 | ** OnlyAFleshWound is common enough in horror films. |
| 80 | ** Marty's [[ChekhovsGun special batch of pot]], aside from rendering him immune to a chemically-induced IdiotBall, might have also been a [[WildMassGuessing heavy-duty pain-killer]]. Marty could have been dying the whole time [[FeelNoPain without even feeling it]]. Who knows how long Marty had left to live? My guess ... not long. |
| 81 | |
| 82 | * Posted this in FridgeLogic already, but...what the hell were the controllers thinking when they installed that big red button? I can't think of a single logical reason they would have such a thing. And if they ''did'', it would have about four or five failsafes in place to make sure it wasn't pressed by accident, or by, say, a couple of people who managed to just find their way into the complex. |
| 83 | ** [[FridgeHorror Perhaps, that button did exactly what it was supposed to do]]. Release a whole bunch of monsters as [[DesperationAttack a last-ditch effort]] to salvage a failing ritual sacrifice at the expense of every man and woman at that facility. |
| 84 | *** Alternatively, or as part of a [[DesperationAttack back-up ritual]] it may be that there is another ritual: the death of the {{Mad Scientist}}s at the hands of their monsters, and ''that'' ritual required the BigRedButton |
| 85 | ** Didn't Dana go through a series of switches before pressing the big red button? (but then again, she did figure out the control panel rather quickly...) |
| 86 | ** It's possible it was intentional, to mock the concept of a BigRedButton. Or as a part of a ritual in which [[FridgeHorror the scientists themselves were sacrificed in a ritual.]] |
| 87 | ** [[ContractualGenreBlindness What kind of mad scientists would they be if they didn't?]] |
| 88 | *** Those two explanations don't really work--the movie is about deconstructing movie cliches, not playing into them. The puppeteers are not only GenreSavvy, they essentially ''wrote'' the rules of the genre. They wouldn't follow an obviously dangerous trope just because--they know better than that. |
| 89 | *** If you watch the movie again, you'll notice that nobody ever actually brings up horror films. Even when Marty is GenreSavvy, it's a generic "We're being set up" instead of "This is exactly like every single horror movie." It's implied that the world of ''Cabin in the Woods'' is not only a separate universe from reality, but is actually a shared universe for all horror in the world. The Controllers aren't actually genre savvy or "writing the rules for horror". The Ancient Ones' demand for ritual sacrifice just happen to coincidentally match our own universe's demand for cliched horror films. So a BigRedButton that causes bad stuff to happen fits perfectly, as they're IN the horror movie universe and don't actually know it. |
| 90 | ** The novel adaption contains a line from mission control frantically demanding where the gas is while the monsters are running haywire. Presumably Dana missed several steps, and the actual function of the 'purge' was to clean out the facility and transport the horrors to a new location after they'd been drugged. |
| 91 | *** That makes some sense. But there should still be a fail safe in place in case the monsters haven't been gassed and the button gets hit anyway. The controllers sort of handled everything as badly as possible after Marty and Dana got into the facility. |
| 92 | *** Normally, the "failsafe" would be the very same guards who got turned into monster munchies when Dana hit the "Purge" button. If they'd been packing silver bullets and robot-shorting EMP packs and so on, and had known what they were getting into, they probably ''could'' have held off the Carnage; unfortunately for them, they were expecting and equipped to take on a couple of badly-battered college kids, ''not'' the legions of Hell. |
| 93 | *** I give you the conversation Sitterson and Hadley have during the Purge. Easy to miss or not understand due to the chaos happening on the screen in front of them, but it perfectly expands on this idea. |
| 94 | ---> '''Sitterson''': Where the hell's the gas?!\ |
| 95 | '''Hadley''': Something chewed through the connectors.\ |
| 96 | '''Sitterson''': Something ''which''?\ |
| 97 | '''Hadley''': Something SCARY!! |
| 98 | ** I assumed that the function of the "purge" was to destroy a creature that was too troublesome for them. Presumably, under controlled circumstances, they would ready whatever is necessary for the destruction of a creature in the corridor, then someone in the control booth flips the switch for the elevator that will bring in the troublesome creature. The purge button releases it and the team destroys it. However, in this particular circumstance, Dana flipped all of the switches before hitting the purge button, and then they left the purge active, releasing everything. |
| 99 | ** I figured that button was usually used to bring down one or two monsters for maintenance. After all, some of them are more scary than obviously deadly. It was simply possible to bring them all at once. Many labs have these kinds of buttons - they do things that you would never, ever do, because if they didn't do that, they couldn't do the necessary things. |
| 100 | ** Note how Dana and Marty remain completely safe behind their glass. I reckon that if the facility had to be evacuated, that button would be used, and the monsters would guard the facility until the situation was sorted out. It was certainly never intended to be used with people still in the facility. |
| 101 | *** Or it was intended to be used if the ''wrong'' people got into the facility, and had to be silenced at any cost. Remember, these sacrifices are being done in secret: if the organization is willing to feed five innocent victims to monsters every year, they're surely also willing to feed trespassers to them to cover up what they're doing. |
| 102 | ** I thought the button was just for that particular room. Something like the room being able to detect what's in it, and the purge button being used to release the monster most suited for purging the occupants of the room. It could have been used to see what archetypes trigger what monsters, or what happens with multiple people. Just this one time, there happened to be several heavily armored guards inside so it released several strong creatures to purge what was inside. And since the door was left open, out they went and chaos ensues. As for it releasing several waves of monsters, maybe it was able to recognize the room was still inhabited and thus kept sending out waves to try and kill the monsters already released. |
| 103 | ** Website/SFDebris suggested a good one for this; "Purge" may have been intended to destroy all the monsters in their cells in an emergency and then bring down the cells to be cleaned out. However Marty had been messing with the wires for half the movie so it's not unreasonable to think he screwed up the system so the "kill" function failed to activate but the "open cell for cleaning" function still happened. |
| 104 | ** Or, System Purge does exactly that, purge the system, as an emergency measure, perhaps as a self-destruct function. |
| 105 | |
| 106 | * What would have happened if they activated multiple devices for summoning evil creatures? (i.e. blow the conch shell, and then read from the journal) |
| 107 | ** The very first one triggered wins. Immediately after Dana reads the Latin, the control room erupts with reactions, as that action determined the monster. Presumably, if she hadn't finished the Latin before Curt blew the conch shell, or before Holden opened the puzzle sphere, whichever of those happened first would have been selected instead. |
| 108 | ** The ''real'' question is, what would the controllers have done if, instead of playing with them, the group had taken one look at that stuff, cried "Hey, antiques! Bye-bye, student loans!", and started indiscriminately shoving things into their camper to sell on [=eBay=]? |
| 109 | *** The controllers do mention that the sacrifice needs to be set up in such a way as to allow the victims to back out, hence the creepy fuel station attendant. If they didn't play along in the basement then the ritual would fail there and then. |
| 110 | *** MissionControl might have decided to interpret the "make out with the wolf" scene as a punishable transgression, given that circumstances were dire. She invited it in, so cue the werewolves. |
| 111 | *** Plus, "steal this" is bound to be the activation for at least one of the objects. Stealing the cursed antique is a classic horror movie transgression to punish. |
| 112 | *** Actually, considering a mummy was one of the monsters on the [[MonsterMash betting board]], I would imagine there would be some sort of artifact that would awaken the mummy if disturbed or taken out of the cellar, a la King Tut's Curse. |
| 113 | *** Considering the treatment the movie gives Jules almost putting on the necklace in comparison with the other artifacts, I'd say that if they stole stuff, that'd be what'd come out. |
| 114 | *** Even if they all stole stuff, they couldn't all leave the cellar at exactly the same time. It would probably be the item held by whoever got upstairs first. Say Jules has the necklace and she is the first up the stairs - The Bride is chosen. |
| 115 | ** They would have had to split the pool multiple ways. |
| 116 | ** It could have been like ''Alien V. Predator'' or ''Film/FreddyVsJason'', when it's similar to a crossover. |
| 117 | |
| 118 | * Most of the creatures in the facility are supernatural, or supernatural enough to merit a spot in the collection. But the Dollface Strangers are human, no? How did they qualify for containment in the facility as opposed to, say, being labeled ordinary serial killers and thrown in jail? |
| 119 | ** One assumes that even the human-looking specimens are more "boogeyman in human form" than "actual human." Besides, we never see them without their masks -- maybe they're not even human under there at all. |
| 120 | ** The clown looked human too, but he was apparently immune to bullets so there's clearly some kind of supernatural thing going on here. |
| 121 | *** Without their masks? What makes you assume that they masks can come off? |
| 122 | *** The clown is clearly a ref to Pennywise from ''Literature/{{It}}'', though, so he's supernatural by, er, nature. The Strangers were just sadistic serial killers. |
| 123 | ** Creepy figures in masks were a staple of horror long before ''Film/TheStrangers''. Perhaps the ones in the facility are similar to a more supernatural version, even if their appearance is a ShoutOut to that film. |
| 124 | ** If the facility's backers are as politically-powerful as is implied, they may well have recruited some of their less-magical creatures ''from'' jail. The Dollfaces, if they're human, are probably on record as having died in some maximum-security prison or an asylum for the criminally insane. |
| 125 | ** if the Dolls are just four human crazies, why aren't the rest of the monsters attacking them? |
| 126 | *** To add to this question why aren't the monsters attacking each other? |
| 127 | *** They probably decide they're better off picking a fight with weaker opponents. |
| 128 | *** As stated on the FridgeLogic page, the monsters were given to the facility by "downstairs". Killing humans is what they're all there for. |
| 129 | *** We already know that they're trained to kill the humans in a specific order. They're probably also trained not to fight each other, on account of the fact that it would be counterproductive for, say, the zombie redneck torture family to start tearing each other apart and leave the humans alone. So they're just doing what they're trained for: killing humans, leaving each other alone. |
| 130 | *** My guess is that the monsters are actually good friends. I mean most of them seem fairly sentient, they spend almost all of their time in glass boxes underground with nothing to do, you can only thrash at each other for so long before you get bored, calm down and start chatting to pass the time. |
| 131 | *** The monsters were clearly avoiding hurting each other, and there was even a level of collaboration among them (IE: The Dragonbat hitting a wall mid-flight by maneuvering to avoid the creepy girl stalking the soldier, the whatever-it-was in the leather coat tossing a victim to the giant cobra, etc). Makes sense since for the monsters' perspective they are escaping from prison, and they probably had some sort of plan for whenever the opportunity arises. |
| 132 | *** Which rather suggests that when "something scary" chewed through the connections that controlled the gas dispensers, it knew ''exactly'' what it was doing. |
| 133 | ** My theory is that the "human" monsters like the Strangers were the Strangers from the afterlife. All the monsters are stated as being courtesy from the ancient gods, making them effectively monsters from Hell. This explains the lack of need to feed them (though they can eat for pleasure) and the lack of apparent bathroom facilities in the creatures' cells. So, the Strangers in this movie are the normal human serial killers. They died, went to Hell, and then got rented out to the organization by the gods. |
| 134 | *** Assuming Hell actually exists in this Verse. Certainly its notion of "gods" is pretty different. |
| 135 | ** Who says they weren't? And then, you know, transferred to "another facility." |
| 136 | ** If the Old Gods are capable of creating a variety of outwardly horrific monsters like the Dragonbat, the obviously supernatural Evil Clown, and a Unicorn, then by all means it's not impossible for them to create more normal looking humanoid monsters like The Dolls or even Kevin. Humans have always been afraid of the Uncanny Valley (things which appear superficially human-like but which have something fundamentally ''wrong'' with their appearance which makes them uncomfortable or frightening to look at, like the Dolls porcelain masks) and people with aberrant behavioral tendencies (people with certain personalities, behaviors, or neurological conditions which makes interacting with them uncomfortable or even potentially dangerous, such as the traditional horror movie image of a psychopath or sociopath). The Dolls fit both of these categories in that they look mostly human save for their eerie porcelain doll-like faces, and the cold, calculated, and unfeeling manner in which one might expect them to hunt down their victims without so much as a flinch away from the carnage they leave in their path. There ''are'' those who consider humanity to be the greatest monster of all. So why wouldn't the Old Gods take a few liberties in their monster creation? |
| 137 | ** It's also possible that in this verse human serial killers, or at least some of them, are actually particular manifestations of the supernatural forces, a la one of the episodes of ''Star Trek'' written by Robert Bloch where it turns out that Jack the Ripper is just one of incarnations of the interplanetary "Redjack" demon. |
| 138 | |
| 139 | * So no one who designed this facility ever took a moment to think "Say....we have this giant invisible hyper tech force field that keeps all of our monsters trapped in the vicinity of our base, right? Even things that can tear through reinforced steel doors and phase through matter (e.g. ghosts). Hey, maybe while we're spending billions on this thing to keep the monsters from getting out we should apply a little of that tech around our offices and nerve centers to keep them from getting IN." |
| 140 | ** Best guess? The puppeteers are extremely GenreSavvy, but they're also really damn ''arrogant''. Look at how they handle the whole scenario: they barely take their work seriously and only narrowly avert disaster with the uncollapsed tunnel because they weren't paying attention. It's likely that while they were constructing the facility, it never occurred to them to set up redundant defenses against the monsters because, come on, how can ''that'' [[TemptingFate possibly happen?]] |
| 141 | ** Some of the other switches Marty and Dana were flipping may have deactivated the facility's internal defense systems, and Marty's ripping out some of the wiring couldn't have helped. |
| 142 | ** After spending all that effort to keep the monsters ''in'', there's no need to redundantly spend effort to keep them ''out''. |
| 143 | ** Plus, just before the lights go out in the control room, Hadley mentions that one of the monsters chewed through the cables on the lower levels, resulting in the base's internal defenses failing. |
| 144 | ** The grid-field didn't just block things from crossing, it ''killed'' them on contact. If that's the only type of force-field which the operators know how to make, they wouldn't use it to confine their monsters, because they don't want to damage their collection. |
| 145 | ** It may not have been a sci-fi force-field at all, but a huge electrically-charged wall with a ''very'' good camouflage mechanism. We never see it switched on or off like a force-field could be, after all. |
| 146 | ** It also helps to have a hard physical defense around your death monsters, if the power goes out for something as simple as a stoner pulling the wire all it takes is someone spilling coffee over the wrong control panel and all the forcefields go off and carnage. Having a hard metal wall in a blackout makes for a pretty hand back up. |
| 147 | |
| 148 | * If every year the kids select their demise, prompting an elevator to call their monster from its cell, how are they put back into their cell after the event finishes? If there are experts who put them back, where were they at the end? How do they harness the insubstantial or incredibly powerful ones, if all they seem to have as a defense against the monsters is MoreDakka? |
| 149 | ** They may have crates of silver bullets. barrels of holy water, and knives inscribed with the Runes of Dissolution. But all that stuff hinges on knowing what specific hazard you're dealing with; when the hazard is "everything at once" they mostly wind up throwing holy water at mermen and shooting the Sugarplum Fairy with silver bullets only to find out that neither of them minds. |
| 150 | ** I got the sense that there was some sort of higher intelligence or mental conditioning guiding the monsters. Remember, for the ritual to work the Whore has to die first (but only after being "corrupted"), and the Virgin has to be the last to die. I doubt it's a coincidence that the Buckners attacked the main characters in exactly the right sequence, and since the control room guys weren't shown guiding the zombie family's actions, we can assume something else was controlling their behavior. My guess is that the monsters are conditioned to go on a killing spree once released from their cages (with some guidelines about what order certain people should be attacked in), but will automatically return to their cages once there's no one left to kill. |
| 151 | ** The whiteboard lists a department called "Zoology". My guess is that they take care of this sort of thing - presumably they have tech more dealing with specific monster types (otherwise how would they contain ghosts and such?) but were overwhelmed/surprised by the purge. |
| 152 | ** There is a different department called 'Wranglers' who would be in charge of herding the monsters back to their cell. |
| 153 | ** There is supposed to be "gas" controlling the monsters in the case they escape, but it doesn't happen. Perhaps because Marty messed with wiring. We know that he managed to (intentionally or not) cut the signal to Demolition for the tunnel collapse. Perhaps he also cut the signal to the gas. Or perhaps Chem fucked up yet again. |
| 154 | *** During the outbreak, one of the Controllers reports that "something scary" chewed through the wiring that controls the gas. Which makes perfect sense, if the monsters are intelligent enough to figure out that sabotaging those wires will prevent them from being tranquilized. |
| 155 | ** During the betting scene, mention is made that the clean-up on mermen is a nightmare, so evidently there ''are'' protocols in place. We just don't know what they are. |
| 156 | ** All that stuff is only ''upstairs.'' |
| 157 | |
| 158 | * If the MainCharacters ''hadn't'' chosen "Zombie Redneck Torture Family", would the room beneath the cabin still be full of 19th century torture equipment, or would the control room have somehow switched it with stuff relevant to the monster they were facing? |
| 159 | ** It would probably still be there, just inexplicable. Rather like the one way mirror, which doesn't make a lot of sense in a redneck zombie-based horror movie, but could have been used to good effect in something with vampires, say. If the sacrifices can make it connect to the horror attacking them, that's well and good, but if not it'll just be dismissed as "Man, some weirdos owned this cabin before," which is good enough for most horror audiences. I'm sure there's a bunch of weird hidden rooms and caves and caches around the area of the cabin waiting to be stumbled across. |
| 160 | *** The wolf head could have been meaningful in a werewolf scenario. Without it, it's just creepy. And yes, the mirror... the painting... the lake (MERMAN!)... |
| 161 | ** The Harbinger refers to the titular Cabin as 'The Buckner place' so I'm assuming the Black Room is always the Black Room. |
| 162 | ** As said, a torture room is good for ambiance, regardless of the scenario. Also possible is, yes, a switch-out depending on the monster. Those monsters were kept in pre-built rooms capable of moving on any axis. It's possible there were pre-built "creepy rooms" tailor-made to work with each monster, and capable of being locked in underneath the bedroom with the trapdoor. If they had picked the deranged robot, it could have been a lab with security footage of said robot killing its creator/s. If they had [[NightmareFuel picked the unicorn...]], |
| 163 | *** For unicorns maybe it would become a hidden stable where the owner of the cabin was capturing unicorns and abusing them or killing them, and now they are hostile to humans. |
| 164 | *** Unicorns have always been hostile to humans. Virgins can approach with immunity, but anyone else would be killed. This is old-school unicorns. |
| 165 | *** So likely in the Unicorn scenario the virgin always survives. |
| 166 | *** Unlikely, given how little the controllers care for getting the roles right. The Ancient Ones may be satisfied with sparing a "virgin" who slept with her teacher, but an old-school Unicorn would not. |
| 167 | ** There was an elevator going to that room, which was probably intended for use by "stagehands" to customize the room at the last minute, in cases where that room is relevant to the scenario at all. For mermen, it would probably stay locked. |
| 168 | *** Or maybe it would just be flooded? |
| 169 | ** Going off what the editor two above me, there's also the painting of something being hunted/torn apart. The painting didn't have too much significance with the monster they chose, but if it had been a werewolf, or any of the other through-and-through creatures, then said painting would have been a lot more relevant. |
| 170 | *** Probably the painting had more to do with priming the This-Place-Creeps-Me-Out pump than {{Foreshadowing}} any particular monster. The one-way mirror was likewise a way to stir up feelings of lust (to get the Whore "corrupted") and/or suspicion within the group (to facilitate splitting the party). |
| 171 | *** The painting depicts a lamb being slaughtered -> Leading a lamb to slaughter. The sacrifices represent the lamb. |
| 172 | ** There's no reason to change it out. None of the stuff in there would have been all that out of place in the cabin to begin with. Without the context of the redneck zombie killers, the characters wouldn't have assumed "This is where they tortured people to death" and just concluded "This is where they butchered game animals for dinner." |
| 173 | ** There were a lot of references to the cabin being the Buckners': the family photo in the cellar, Patience's portrait in said cellar, Mordecai mentioning the cabin as the old Buckner place... Dana might have assumed the room was whatever, but it's clear that the writers intended the place to be ''the'' Buckner's cabin. |
| 174 | *** Right, but if she hadn't read the diary then the Buckners aren't significant. Whatever monster the friends ''did'' release, the controllers could have adapted them into the story as its first victims or the ones who summoned it. There's nothing inherently ominous or out of place about a rusty trowel, bear trap, hand saw, etc until you read that it's a torture porn family. |
| 175 | *** Regardless of what monster would have been chosen, the cabin would still have to have belonged to someone. The Buckners would then have been involved with the monsters in some other way. |
| 176 | *** Or the cabin might be given no connection whatsoever, and the monster's appearance would be foreshadowed by some unrelated event (e.g. if they picked the robot, the controllers might feed their radio a broadcast about a mysterious accident in a robotics facility ''near'' the woods). |
| 177 | ** The poster shows the cabin and its basements hovering in mid-air, layers twisting in relation to each other, like a giant Rubik's cube. Based on this, I'd say the rooms below can be changed out as the storyline dictates. |
| 178 | ** Perhaps it was originally the Buckners' cabin, but the organization repurposed it for generic horror since it already was the perfect location and only needed some minor tweaking. |
| 179 | ** Mordecai's reference to the cabin as "the old Bucker place" does seem to poke a hole in the randomness angle. On the other hand, I suppose without context, that could be contorted to be anything. Maybe the Buckners were HillbillyHorrors, or maybe they were antique collectors, or film buffs, or marine biologists, or whatever was necessary. We don't see the Black Room until after the Redneck Zombie Family is selected, my best guess is that that room is "reset" to whatever is necessary to fit the chosen article. Maybe if it's Fornicus, it becomes a BSDM room; if it's Merman, it becomes an aquarium room, and so on. |
| 180 | ** Maybe that was an ad-lib by Mordecai, and he wanted the Buckners to be summoned, so he tried to influence them to gravitate towards Patience's diary. |
| 181 | ** I guess the cabin having belonged to Buckners is ''the reason why it was chosen by the controllers in the first place''. Like, most of the monsters shown do not seem to be tied to any specific place other than pretty generic "wild forest, ominous lake" thing, but in this case you have to go with the place where they lived, died and were buried. Given this, [[FridgeBrilliance it actually makes total sense that Maintenance keeps choosing Buckners every year.]] |
| 182 | |
| 183 | * Ignoring the ending, how would the concept of a "sequel" be handled? The film itself has been said to be a metaphor of horror films and their audiences so how would this business go around preparing a "sequel" should a previous survivor return to the area days, months or years later? |
| 184 | ** She becomes a werewolf, allowing her to survive in Alien 4ish fashion. Whedon wrote Alien 4, and generally likes the idea of girl's getting superpowers. |
| 185 | ** Easy answer, even with the ending. As the base collapses, a brick or something landed on Marty, killing him. This placates the Ancient, though it's still pretty grumpy. The organization is reformed in one year, with new monsters shipped in, and on a shoestring budget they had sure as hell better put on a great show for the Ancient since the last one went so poorly. |
| 186 | ** Anyone up for a DeconstructiveParody of {{Kaiju}} movies? |
| 187 | *** ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' has pretty much covered parodying that genre as much as possible. |
| 188 | ** Possibly the Ancient Ones don't destroy everybody all at once, but rather, condemn ''all'' humans to play out the same sorts of rituals, one scenario after another after another. This continues non-stop until A) one of the sacrifices finds a way to go back in time and kill Marty before dawn, B) their bloodlust is so slaked by oceans of gore that they finally go back to sleep, or C) they run out of humans. Or, since it's a deconstruction, until one of the intended sacrifices calls them out on [[TakeThatAudience how lame it is to watch innocent people suffering for kicks]]. |
| 189 | *** Didn't Marty say something like "it's time to give someone else a fighting chance"? I thought that implied the humans were at least going to put up a good fight against the Ancient Ones. |
| 190 | *** No, he said "give someone else a chance," not a fighting chance, meaning that it was time for humanity itself to go away and for something else to take its place. |
| 191 | *** Dana said that as they were having their last smoke. It was a reference to Marty's earlier rambling in the RV that humans are too scared to let the world crumble like it should. |
| 192 | ** How do we know that the Ancient Ones will rise if not sated, and if they rise, they will "destroy" the world? Presumably, because it happened before. Since we are here, then, it's not like ''total'' world destruction. After all, [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} SkyNet]] is never able to ''totally'' destroy all organic life. Not even humans. But they do manage to pretty much "destroy" the world. |
| 193 | *** For all we know, it'd happened before to a species that ''preceded'' humans, and we only inherited the Earth because our Precursors blew it with ''their'' rituals. We know very little about the Verse in which this film is set, aside from the existence of a fairly diverse assortment of monsters and some grumpy horror-addicted Ancient Ones. |
| 194 | ** How about a war against the Titans? Maybe we find out that they were unstoppable in 1850, but go down to sufficient quantities of modern anti-armor rounds. Then they're gone, but some of their power lingers, and we get an UrbanFantasy setting? |
| 195 | ** Perhaps a similar scenario, except with [[ActionAdventureTropes Action Movie]] tropes? Lots of cannon fodder dying, big explosions, so on so forth, with the idea that mankind is effectively making a deal with a different set of AudienceSurrogate [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Horrors]], which may be WORSE due to the differences in scope between formulaic Horror movies and formulaic Action movies. The ones representing the Horror audience are satisfied with 5 deaths... The ones representing the Action-Adventure audience wreck cities. |
| 196 | ** A sequel to ''this'' film would need to be a prequel. For a standard horror film set in the Cabin? That does not seem to have come up much, with their high clearance rate, although the surviving Virgins could be problematic. ''Film/EvilDead2'' style? You'll need someone to repeat the same mistake or set off a plausibly related monster. Alternately, it wouldn't need to make any sense; as long as the cast dies, The Ancient Ones are happy. Drug the survivor, drop him/her off, and add enough newcomers to make sure someone sets off the monsters. Drug her for a bit longer so that they can activate something in the basement before last year's Virgin wakes up, then is treated as a maniac for thinking a conch shell somehow summons monsters? |
| 197 | *** A prequel sounds fantastic - e.g what happened in 1998? How did the Chem Department fuck up then? |
| 198 | ** How about an interquel about how one or more of the ''other'' controller teams managed to screw the pooch that year? What killed the kaiju in Argentina, or started the fire seen on another view screen from Europe? |
| 199 | ** It depends on what you mean by "ignore the ending". If the ritual works, then the "sequel" would be the next group of kids set-up as sacrifices- it could also involve the controllers having to deal with all the damage caused by this year's mistakes, while trying to keep the ritual going- which could be pretty fun. If you mean, however, that the ending isn't the end of the world, the only sequel would be the world trying to deal with the released monsters and Ancient Ones. |
| 200 | *** I'd actually like to see a sequel with the world trying to deal with the released monsters and the Ancient Ones, largely because I'm tired of the overdone concept of an apocalypse threshold, wherein once a certain event has happened or a certain entity has entered the world, humanity will roll over and die because 6 billion humans and enough firepower to burn the world a thousand times over just isn't enough to overcome an EldritchAbomination or two, or the legions of hell can't possibly be stopped by anything that humanity is capable of (but can by a handful of people with sticks and martial arts), or etc. |
| 201 | *** We have that sequel, It's called Pacific Rim. Think about it... |
| 202 | ** I'd predict a [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture Near Future]] scenario, with reference to some sort of nuclear terrorist attack (like how ''Series/Babylon5'' refers to the San Diego wastelands) the turns out to be where the Ancient One was nuked. Perhaps with a survivor of the original project staff explaining what's going on, either as head of a new crew, or trying to warn the new victims. |
| 203 | ** Cabin in the Woods [[TropesInSpace IN SPACE]]! Or Cabin in the Woods IN MEDIEVAL TIMES! It can be a satire on how the longer a franchise gets extended, the more ridiculous the premise gets. And you know what movies I'm referencing that got that treatment. |
| 204 | ** As mentioned above, it turns out that Marty is killed during the rise of the Ancients before the Virgin dies, which turns out to be such a hilarious event that the Ancients are content for the time. Word spreads of the almost apocalypse to other branches of the organization, and during the review of what went wrong it's revealed that there were complaints about the American branch of The Organization's conduct (like how they were placing bets). It's decided that in order to prevent ANY future disasters that the system is in need of serious reform. Looking into HOW the almost apocalypse and reviewing slip-ups (like having one button that unleashes all the monsters at once, not taking care to check for anything that could tip off the victims like the wire Marty noticed, not keeping the entrance to the facility better guarded like with at least a password for entrance, etc.) The movie serves as one big commentary on Cabin in the Wood's own premise, since it's ultimately pointed out how ridiculous it is to trust the fate of the world with a gang who rather than treat their duty with a grim professionalism treat it all like a game and otherwise behave unprofessionally. |
| 205 | |
| 206 | * "This is the only formula we've found that works." How do they know that? Presumably, they've done a lot of trial and error before arriving at this specific scenario. But if a formula didn't work, the Ancient Ones would come back and wipe out humanity. Obviously that hasn't happened yet, so how did they know to try something else? |
| 207 | ** Possibly each nation's facility takes a turn trying some sort of variant on their culture's usual ritual, while the rest stick to what's tried-and-true. If the variant leads to a grumpy Ancient One who doesn't stop shaking the ground until one of the other nations' rites is completed properly, they know that version is ineffective. |
| 208 | ** Since they are wholly dedicated to satiating a group of beings known as "The '''Ancient''' Ones", they have been doing this for a long time. Since, you know, ''ancient'' times. |
| 209 | ** Or perhaps The Ancient Ones ™ '''told''' them. |
| 210 | ** Yeah, which feels like a poor excuse to justify the actions of MissionControl and all those people who worked there. Let's be blunt; these assholes are killing innocent people and warping their minds to fit inhuman archetypes. Even if the threat was really that bad, there is still a person's base humanity to consider the fact that most of them should have had some crisis of faith to show that these people are more than just a organization based on being a monster in a lab coat. In many ways, they should have been more villainous. |
| 211 | *** Most of the controllers have been there for years, they've had plenty of time to become desensitized to what they're doing and justify it as necessary to prevent a much worse fate. The one new guy did show that he had some problems with what was going on, but he was just a low-level employee who never directly caused anything to happen and even he wasn't going in unprepared - he had had the operation and its purpose explained to him beforehand, and had probably undergone a very careful screening process. |
| 212 | *** Considering how their complacency is a big part of why [[spoiler: Marty wasn't killed and the ritual screwed up]], it's actually quite believable that the controllers seem so jaded about it. If they'd ''cared'' more, they might have paid more attention and not made so many mistakes, meaning the scenario would have wrapped up normally and we'd have only had a routine movie about zombie rednecks attacking vacationers, never glimpsing what was happening behind the scenes. |
| 213 | ** I was under the impression that she meant, the formula that works ''today'' as having, for example, people in dark robes sacrificing virgins in monoliths is no longer viable. |
| 214 | |
| 215 | * It's mentioned that the American facility has only failed to complete its ritual once before, in 1998, due to a screw-up by the Chem Department. Was that date chosen at random, or was a movie released that year that Creator/JossWhedon thought was exceptionally-lame, even for schlock horror? |
| 216 | ** The American remake of the Ring was released that year, so maybe a commentary about ripping off other cultures' horror? |
| 217 | *** No it wasn't. [[Creator/GoreVerbinski Verbinski's]] ''Film/TheRing'' dates from 2002 (you're thinking of the original ''Ringu'' by Hideo Nakata, which WAS released in 1998 in Japan.) However, there IS a plethora of American horror movies from 1998 which received widely varied criticism, so pinpointing one as the subject of the TakeThat is going to be difficult at best. |
| 218 | *** ''{{Film/Ringu}}'' may very well have been the successful ritual for that year in-'Verse. Remember the Japanese had a flawless record up to this point. |
| 219 | *** Which could explain the 1998 reference. Everybody failed except for Japan, explaining the explosion of Japanese remakes that we started to see in the US (''Film/TheRing'', ''Film/TheGrudge'', ''Film/TheEye'', ''Film/OneMissedCall'', etc). After the US's formula failed they started trying what worked for the other guys. And it could also be a joke about how coming so close to disaster in 1998 lead Japan to start clinging to the "scary ghost girl" trope to guarantee that they'd never fail again. |
| 220 | ** ''Film/TheTrumanShow'' came out in 1998. |
| 221 | ** Scoping a list of 1998 horror films, the only one that sticks out is ''Film/TheFaculty''. There isn't a single fatality within the main cast of students (save for the "Virgin" who is ultimately revealed as the monster). And to make matters worse the monster's undoing turns out to be the stoner's custom mix. Damn Chem Department indeed... |
| 222 | *** Yes, according to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGz2xdQa1ho Good Bad Flicks it was The Faculty]] and I agree in the logic behind it. |
| 223 | |
| 224 | * I don't get it; many, many people died in the movie, many more than the four/five that were supposed to, yet the Ancient Douches don't enjoy it and instead decide that the world ends? How dumb ''are'' they? |
| 225 | ** Sitterson says early on that the sacrifices have to enter the sacrificial space with the knowledge that others who have gone before them have died. The sacrifices must inadvertently (or purposely) ''volunteer'' to die horrible deaths. The employees who work in the facility went there to do their jobs and save the world, not ''be the sacrifices necessary to do so''. |
| 226 | ** It's got nothing to do with the number of deaths. The Ancient Ones just want to see the story play out exactly the way that they want it, every single time. Dipping into the metaphor, think of how many people left the movie complaining that it was 'weird', who would have been perfectly happy if it'd been just another horror movie where cardboard cut-outs got killed in a precise order. All that blood and death meant nothing to them, because it's not the story ''they'' were expecting. |
| 227 | *** Those people who thought it was weird must be really blind or dense to miss the fact that the trailer revealed that the movie isn't going to be your average horror story. Hell, even the tagline is "you think you know the story". For the analogy of "audience = ancients horrors" to work, the producers and the director would need to use fake marketing to make the people think its just another cliche horror movie so when they see this movie, they would be just as pissed off as the abominations and THEN be hit with the realization that if they are just THAT angry for a movie then they are not better than cosmic horrors themselves. |
| 228 | *** The film isn't a metaphor for itself. It's a metaphor for the entire horror genre, and how so many cliched and formulaic films have been made perfectly to audience expectations. |
| 229 | ** When the Director appears, she explains that the sacrifices have to be young and are punished accordingly. Their "sins" are being sexy, strong, smart, funny, or pure. The dead in the control facility might simply not be young enough, nor did any of them trigger a monster's release by messing with an artifact as did the main cast. |
| 230 | ** The whole point behind a ritual is that it's... well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin ritualistic]]. There needs to be a specific pattern to how everything pans out in order for the Ancient Ones to be satisfied. It's implied that it USED to be as simple as "throwing a girl into a volcano", but the gods demanded something different. |
| 231 | ** The ancient ones don't necessarily have any special attachment to the world. It doesn't matter if they kill everyone. They can just make a new world and a new set of people to entertain them. Plus, the movie hints that they are getting bored with the current formula that the facility insists to work every time. The facility is reusing the same material because it worked in the past, rather than coming up with new material. |
| 232 | |
| 233 | * All of this assumes that Mission Control's word is gospel. It's not impossible that what the Japanese school girls did could work on the Ancient Ones on a different scale. After all...they were sealed in the first place...Why not something that ends them completely? |
| 234 | ** The "sealing away" seems to be a voluntary thing, given that they can break out if not satisfied by the rituals. The problem with fighting them is that if it fails they're pretty much guaranteed to retaliate. Maybe there could be a way to fight them with some kind of powerful magic or weaponry (the people who started the ritual didn't have tanks or nuclear missiles, the balance of power could well have shifted over the millennia), but doing so would risk total annihilation and would likely lead to heavy casualties even if they won; alternatively they have a tried and tested method which has kept the ancients at bay for thousands of years and requires relatively few deaths each year. |
| 235 | *** Considering who the Ancient Ones are a stand-in for [[spoiler:(i.e., ''us'', who decide whether a film is successful and continues into sequels, or bombs and ends right there)]] it's reasonable to assume that, within the context of the film, they are omnipotent. |
| 236 | *** According to the script, the Ancient Ones ruled the world before humans and, after fighting for a long time, decided to sleep. Each culture has it's own god to appease and as long as one is satisfied, they'll all remain asleep. So essentially, they decided to sleep, and it's up to us to keep them that way, because it's the only way to get rid of them. |
| 237 | |
| 238 | * Nobody in the facility checked Marty's vital signs to see if he was still alive? They all just assumed he was dead when he was dragged off camera? [[IdiotBall Wow.]] |
| 239 | ** Probably the teens' clothing had been wired to track their vital signs, and when Marty got stabbed, the trowel inadvertently wrecked his monitoring device. The readout went dead, which was misinterpreted as a sign his heart had stopped. |
| 240 | ** Marty had '''just''' discovered a fiber-optic camera in the lamp right before he was grabbed, so he started looking for other hidden gadgets, and found his vitals tracker. The controllers didn't monitor Marty's vital signs to mark the kill, they just saw the zombie take him behind a berm and then saw blood splashing from behind it. That's when the controller pulls the second handle. Marty had some time to disable his tracker before they would have even thought to check. |
| 241 | ** The teens' vital signs weren't being monitored to see which ones had died or not. They were being monitored so the Controllers would know when they were being successfully scared out of their minds, as the ritual demanded, and to gauge the amounts of gas they'd need to be exposed to. It's possible that Marty's monitor switched off automatically when the blood-lever was pulled, because normally that'd mean there was no more need to track his heart rate, etc. |
| 242 | |
| 243 | * In the final scene, Marty says something like, "I don't think Curt even has a cousin". Is that supposed to be some kind of a joke? If not, doesn't it imply Curt knew the cabin wasn't what they thought it was? And if he knew, why didn't he say anything about it? |
| 244 | ** It's not a joke, it just closes a dangling thread in the plot: It implies that the controllers had picked out their group and were manipulating them long before they approached the cabin. At some point, they got to Curt, and (chemically or psychologically) made him believe that he ''had'' a cousin who was lending him his house. His friends were too eager to go (or likewise manipulated) to ask questions about this mysterious cousin until it was too late. Without that line, we would have left the theater [[FridgeLogic wondering all sorts of things about Curt's cousin too]]. |
| 245 | ** Er, wouldn't ''brainwashing someone to believe he has a cousin'' be much more difficult than, say, faking an email or a phone call from a relative of Curt who actually existed. That's how I thought Curt got the information about the cabin, I never thought his cousin was actually involved in the whole sacrifice thing. If the line was added to the end for the reason you suggest, I'd say it creates more confusion than it solves. |
| 246 | *** YMMV, I guess. I see "forging an email or phone call from a real relative" as the far more difficult ruse to maintain. |
| 247 | *** Too difficult for an organization that can completely brainwash you with a puff of smoke? |
| 248 | *** Yes. One phone call to a real relative to say "Hey, thanks for the cabin!" followed by "What cabin?" and the whole thing's blown. |
| 249 | *** And "Hi, Mom, just calling to let you know I'll be at Cousin Bob's cabin for the weekend." "Who's Cousin Bob?" ''wouldn't'' blow the whole thing? |
| 250 | *** Not if the e-mail read, "Hey, cuz, I'm going on vacation in Barbados and will be incommunicado for two weeks. But so long as I'm not using it, there's this cabin you and your buds might want to check out..." |
| 251 | *** If the organization can set up five college students to get systematically slaughtered, and drastically influence their behavior with drugs and pheromones, it can certainly arrange for the cousin of one of the five to stay out of contact with him for a while. Heck, they could even ''kill'' the cousin outright, if they had to: they're blatantly indifferent to whether the Virgin lives or dies, so long as it's not too soon, so writing off a sixth life that's not part of the ritual wouldn't be much of an issue to them. |
| 252 | ** Could be it's an indication of how fed-up Marty is with being manipulated and deceived. After going though so many twists, he suspects that even the existence of Curt's cousin (who probably ''was'' real, just uninvolved with the sacrifice plot) may be a ruse. Marty doesn't guess right about ''everything'' ("[[WrongGenreSavvy I'm on a reality TV show!]]"), just more than the controllers had allowed for. |
| 253 | *** ...no, he was completely correct about that one too. Marty ''is'' on a Reality TV Show. Just not one being made for humans; it's explicitly stated that the Ancient Ones are watching, and everything has to happen the right way in order to please them. It's a reality show about people being killed horribly, filmed for the entertainment of Eldritch Abominations. |
| 254 | *** That point is somewhat moot anyway since it was Dana that said the line about the cousin. |
| 255 | *** Curt could have simply lied about his cousin. Perhaps a Facility stooge offered the use of the cabin "but don't tell anyone I own it because I sometimes grow marijuana up there. Say it belongs to a cousin or something." |
| 256 | ** Or for an Occam's cut, Curt does have a cousin and Marty just doesn't know about or remember them. |
| 257 | |
| 258 | * The conch shell was for mermaids, the puzzle sphere was for the [[Franchise/{{Hellraiser}} Pinhead-Expy]], and the book was for the Buckners. Presumably the music box was for the [[NestedMouths Sugarplum Fairy]], but what critter would the necklace Jules was handling have summoned? |
| 259 | ** For some reason, I thought that it was associated with the ghost that Marty and Jules see almost immediately upon arrival at the facility. |
| 260 | ** I recall a ghostly figure wearing the dress that went with the locket. There was something called "The Bride" on the board, and that looked an awful lot like a wedding dress... |
| 261 | *** According to the wiki, yes, it was [[http://thecabininthewoods.wikia.com/wiki/The_Bride The Bride]]. |
| 262 | |
| 263 | * Along the same lines: Marty was staring at film strips. What would they have summoned? Maybe we should move this to WMG... |
| 264 | ** Presumably the activation method in that case would have been to find a projector somewhere in the cellar and take a look at the pictures. They summon whatever monster is in the pictures, maybe something like Bigfoot or a lake monster - something mysterious that lives in the woods but is rarely seen. |
| 265 | ** Sasquatch was on the board... |
| 266 | ** Well, according to Drew Goddard, (and the wiki) it was [[http://thecabininthewoods.wikia.com/wiki/Kevin Kevin]] |
| 267 | |
| 268 | * How was Marty the Fool? He figured things out early, and considering that Virgin (Forgot her name) was pretty much screwed, he's pretty smart in the way he saved her. Is it something to appease the Moral Guardians- smoking pot is foolish? |
| 269 | ** They mean "The Fool" in the sense of, for instance, a jester, as opposed to "lacking in intelligence." That is, he is the comic relief, who makes people laugh either through his witty quips or outrageous antics. He also spends the first two acts of the movie high as a kite, making him even more prone to do or say something weird for the audience's amusement. But part of the point is that these are less ''characters'' and more ''people'', and they all subvert their supposed role in the ritual. Once he's sobered up, Marty's actually quite intelligent and quick on the uptake. |
| 270 | *** It's also FridgeBrilliance. Marty turns out to be the Fool in the old 'Lord of Misrule' sense. He's someone who turns societal roles and rituals upside down. In this case, he destroys the ritual by surviving. |
| 271 | ** Don't forget: Marty didn't fall into his stereotype. Nobody fit their role in the beginning, and it's clearly established for each of them: Curt gives an intelligent recommendation to Dana, thus showing he's quite smart, Holden catches a football from a two story window and is said to have good hands, and thus is not a complete intellectual, Dana is introduced without pants on and recovering emotionally from an affair with her teacher, and thus is clearly not pure. Jules is shown to be smart and levelheaded, and frowns up Dana's affair with her teacher, and so is clearly not an air headed slut. Marty perhaps fits his role the best at first, because he's shown to be making the poor decision of driving whilst smoking a bong, but he's also shown to be quick-witted and clever. The agency made half-informed decisions of which role to assign: Curt and Jules are dating, and Curt's a big guy and Jules beautiful, so make them the Athlete and the Whore. Dana is single, so she'll be the virgin. That leaves Holden and Marty for the Scholar and the Fool, so obviously the pothead will be the Fool. Marty's drugs would have probably made him much less rational and fit his role much more, but they didn't work on him. And besides, he's not shown to be a paragon of insight. If anything, he's more a CaptainObvious because he's pointing out things that only an idiot (or someone manipulated through chemicals) wouldn't notice. Obviously the wind blowing the cellar door open makes no sense, which he points out. In a dark basement full of creepy antiques that somebody else owns? Probably not a good idea to mess with them. Everything else? He's ''high''. He's paranoid, and for once it works out for him. |
| 272 | *** Same troper who asked this question here. So since their archetypes weren't perfect, doesn't that mean that the ritual wouldn't have been completed anyway? So in that vein, the whole "Shoot him or die" thing is pointless because she's going to die in 8 minutes anyway. |
| 273 | *** As the Director said, "[They] work with what [they] have." The people they chose as sacrifices didn't quite ''fit'' their predetermined archetypes, but the controllers manipulated events ''and'' the victims' minds to force them to fit. And apparently, ordinary people falling into old archetypes (in spite of themselves) is enough for the Ancient Ones' satisfaction. |
| 274 | *** Just like [[DawsonCasting twenty-something actors playing high school kids]] is enough for horror-film audiences' satisfaction. |
| 275 | *** Because actual high school-age kids can't (usually) [[{{Fanservice}} legally take their clothes off in front of a camera.]] |
| 276 | |
| 277 | * In terms of the world is it like the SCP Foundation, only the [=SCPs=] are all monsters and the main containment procedure is keeping the Ancient Ones sated? Obviously the spirits and stuff are real since exorcism works on the spirits, but they also have Engineering which to me covers everything from the tech to actually creating the monsters. |
| 278 | ** Holy [Deleted], I think they just failed procedure 110-Montauk. |
| 279 | *** A handful of annual ritual sacrifices sounds pretty tame for [[MoralEventHorizon 110-Montauk]]. |
| 280 | ** They probably made a few, like the robot, but the others were just there. One line from the controllers seems to suggest that the Ancient Ones may have provided the monsters themselves, though whether that means creating them or just rounding them up, who can tell? |
| 281 | |
| 282 | * Did it occur to anyone that the characters (and actors) are too young to have gotten the reference to the anti-drug PSA? It's from the 80s. Yet the characters are all college students, which puts them somewhere between about 18 and 22 -- all born in the 90s or just before. |
| 283 | ** [[HandWave Internet.]] |
| 284 | *** This. It's had a pretty strong second life on the internet. It was shown on the Nostalgia Critic, and its Youtube video has over a million views. |
| 285 | ** That PSA has taken on a life of its own due to how corny it is. Off the top of my head, it was a joke on ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' during the fifth season. There's no reason why they couldn't be coming by the reference second- to fifth-hand. |
| 286 | |
| 287 | * Aren't the Controllers a possible sacrifice? Evil scientists/misguided extremists doing things considered inhuman in the name of power/for the greater good and then getting their comeuppance or a poetic/ironic punishment or death is a staple of the horror genre in the West. Therefore, shouldn't the death of the Controllers have fulfilled the requirement of sacrifice through a story plot traditional to Western horror stories? Also, the Controllers would likely have known that people who do what they do often are hoisted by their own petards in stories, so they would know that others have gone before them. |
| 288 | ** That's honestly how I thought the story was gonna end... I was expecting there to be a final twist that revealed there was another group of higher-level Controllers who were manipulating the Controllers who got killed, and that these high-level Controllers were using the lower-level Controllers as unwitting pawns in the ritual to sate the Ancient Ones, just as the lower Controllers thought they were using the youngsters. In that scenario, the youngsters escaping the game and killing the lower-level Controllers would all have been part of the ritual as planned by the high-level Controllers. On a meta level, this would've been a nice way to point out how post-''Sixth Sense'' horror films tend to have the sort of twist ending we saw here, and how the horror fans of today (whom the Ancient Ones represent) now ''expect'' the movies to have such twists. But this ultimate twist never happened, and for some reason Goddard's and Whedon's meta-criticism was pointed towards the conventions of 80s slasher movies, even though those conventions have become kinda obsolete in post-[[Creator/MNightShyamalan Shyamalan]] mainstream horror. |
| 289 | ** I have to say, I think most horror still runs more on [[TheEighties 80's]] tropes than anything having to do with ''Film/TheSixthSense''. In fact, most horror that has a twist can probably be traced to ''Film/TheUsualSuspects'', for example. But, remember- this wasn't necessarily about people making ''good'' horror films- but, if you will, ''salable'' horror. |
| 290 | |
| 291 | * Mordecai says over the telephone that Marty almost ruined the invocation. How? |
| 292 | ** When Marty "sassed" Mordecai it could have kept them from fueling up, and they would have turned around and gone home. |
| 293 | ** Or, since Mordecai was specifically part of the 'free choice' part of the ritual, the ''sassing'' might have kept any of the co-eds from taking him seriously- thus negating their choice. |
| 294 | ** I figured it was because Marty is pegged as the Fool. If anybody's supposed to get angry at the guy insulting a nice girl, it should be the Athlete, but the Athlete stays pretty calm. Totally messing up the planned roles right off the bat, before they can even get into the scenario. |
| 295 | ** To fulfill his role as Harbinger, Mordecai has to convey certain facts about the cabin to make the intended sacrifices aware it could be a dangerous place. By calling Mordecai out on his rudeness and injecting wisecracks into the encounter, Marty nearly derailed his chance to relate the necessary ominous warning, by turning what ''needed'' to be a creepy scene into a comedic one. |
| 296 | |
| 297 | * Clearly the wolf's head is what triggers the werewolf, but what is it that they have to do to it for that to count? I mean, clearly just touching it doesn't trigger it... Plus, the Controllers don't seem to be anticipating anything to get triggered then. |
| 298 | ** On that note, are ALL of the triggers/summoning mechanisms in the cellar? Potentially, things like breaking the mirror or whatever happens with the wolf could also be the summoning mechanism, but the Controllers' behavior seems to indicate otherwise. |
| 299 | *** Yeah, I don't think the Wolf's head really does anything. The controllers specifically mention that the victims have to go to the cellar and choose how are they going to die there. |
| 300 | *** It's always possible that if they didn't choose in the basement, a secondary level of choices could be activated, it just always has to start with the cellar. |
| 301 | *** This troper assumed that the wolf's head did nothing. It was just another creepy bit of interior decoration like the dismembering goat painting. |
| 302 | ** Clearly, the wolf's head [[http://thecabininthewoods.wikia.com/wiki/Werewolf did nothing]]. |
| 303 | ** I think that there was something in that huge cellar that triggered the Werewolf. The wolf's head was meant to allude to that later. |
| 304 | ** Was I the only person who thought that if something was triggered in the basement (possibly some sort of thing with a pentagram on it) that the wolf's head would turn INTO the werewolf? |
| 305 | *** This troper thought of the possibility, but didn't think it likely. Unlike the cellar's items, the wolf head wasn't portrayed in a particularly creepy fashion, which one would expect from a ChekhovsGun. |
| 306 | ** It's illogical to assume the wolf's head was a trigger object, because 99% of the time, one would expect the potential sacrifices to just ignore it as a tacky bit of taxidermy. The Controllers weren't manipulating the Truth-or-Dare game's ''progression'' at all, only (to a degree) the mindsets of the participants. And it turned out that Marty - the one who suggested Jules make out with the thing - wasn't being influenced to begin with, thanks to the Chem Department. |
| 307 | |
| 308 | * Something else was going on that we never got an explanation on. Why wasn't the tunnel blown? Once the celebration started, one of the controllers was joking with the maintenance guys, saying they almost gave him a heart attack. But they tried to tell him there was a power redirect "from upstairs", which freaks that controller out. And then the conversation is hijacked a call from upstairs saying there is a problem. There's three possibilities I can see: |
| 309 | ** 1. Sabotage. Some NietzscheWannabe infiltrated the organization and caused a few key things to go wrong. This wouldn't cover the other facilities around the world, but its possible that a doomsday cult could because as big as the "horror studio" operation. This would undermine the entire message of the movie, I understand, but then why did that exchange happen at all? Wasn't that pertinent information? That would have brought the plot to another level of awesome, at least for me. |
| 310 | ** 2. Message is everything. Keeping the core idea of the previous possibility, this could be a very subtle dig at all those movies for whom TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot. Several people have complained that the focus should have been on someone other than the five friends (which misses the point of the movie, I know, but stick with me here), so the better story of the two warring organization took a back seat to the tried and tested "five idiot kids get killed by [INSERT MONSTER HERE]", which many are past getting sick of, but still keeps getting made every year, without fail. |
| 311 | ** 3. See above (#2), but ExecutiveMeddling instead. How many great horror movies have been destroyed in their creative process by the studio wanting to be "safe" with the aforementioned formulaic plot structure? The answer is we'll never know (which is what I fear is the answer to this question, in general). |
| 312 | *** We actually are given an answer on this. Marty's been screwing around in the maintenance tunnels sabotaging things and learning how to manipulate their system. The "from upstairs" line is a deliberate misdirect; it leads the audience to assume they're talking about a higher power in some way, when in actuality, they literally mean upstairs; up above their subterranean bunker, where Marty is. |
| 313 | *** The whole "upstairs/downstairs" thing seems to cause some confusion. Upstairs means the ritual taking place in the cabin. All of the "higher ups" are ''downstairs.'' The whole structure is inverted from what we would normally expect, so the weakest members of the organization (the sacrifices) are at the top, the controllers are below them, the Director below them and the strongest (The Ancient Ones) are at the bottom. |
| 314 | ** The guy who freaked out the Controller was from Demolitions, not Maintenance. Different departments according to the betting board. |
| 315 | |
| 316 | * Why did the organization controlling the rituals need a whole stable of different monsters? Isn't that just needlessly complex and wasteful? Wouldn't it be more reliable to have the sacrifices release a one particular kind of monster every time? There's no need for a whole zoo if the zombies can do the job year and again. |
| 317 | ** Because if "choice" is a big part of the ritual, then it's likely the Ancient Ones demand variety in the execution of said ritual as well. |
| 318 | *** ^ This. Remember that the sacrifice isn't just "kill some people, the Ancient Ones are pleased". The Ancient Ones actually have to be entertained by the whole sequence of events. If they just reused the same monster over and over again, well, there's only so many zombie movies you can watch before you get sick of zombies and want to see something different, and unlike the horror fans the Ancient Ones are an Expy of, if the Ancient Ones get bored, they don't complain on the internet, they destroy the world. |
| 319 | ** A more practical reason is that they need to be ''absolutely sure'' they attract the victims' attention. If they narrowed it down to say, the diary, and that particular group said "Diary of some dead redneck? BOOOOOOOOOORING!" and went back upstairs, the whole thing would fail. So they literally throw everything ''and'' the kitchen sink just to be sure someone triggers something. But of course, the probably correct reason is that only having one monster wouldn't allow for the hilarious office pool. |
| 320 | ** It's specifically mentioned by the Controllers that the sacrifices have to choose. One of them says flat out that "They have to choose how they die". The whole story is that these teenagers are being punished for their transgressions. They're being manipulated into these transgressions, yes, but that's close enough for the Ancient Ones. |
| 321 | |
| 322 | * How did that one zombie get inside the van? It wasn't there when Dana, Curt and Holden drove off for the tunnel. It just comes out of nowhere. |
| 323 | ** When they all pile into the van and close the door, the camera pans down to a large bloody hand print on the bottom of the door before they drive off. I assumed that was to show something had crawled into the van and was hiding. |
| 324 | ** Ah. So why'd it wait until attacking the lot of them? If it was about getting them in the order the ritual demands, it could just have attacked Curt first. Instead, it appears to have waited until Curt was dead from the fall, before ganking Holden. |
| 325 | ** Well, it's scarier that way. But the more direct answer is that Curt was in the driver's seat and Holden was standing behind him. Perhaps it didn't think it could overpower all three of them or it didn't want to kill another by accident. |
| 326 | *** ^ This is probably the best explanation. The creatures seem to understand that they have to kill the victims in a specific order. Starting a melee in the tight confines of the truck could easily result in either the zombie getting overpowered or, worse, accidentally killing the Virgin. |
| 327 | *** That makes sense. Thanks all. |
| 328 | |
| 329 | * In the command center they have (well, ''[[HilarityEnsues had]]'') hundreds upon hundreds of plexiglass cubicles filled with examples of every type of monster known to man, from ancient folklore to modern horror. This raises a couple of questions: |
| 330 | ** Where did they get all of them? |
| 331 | ** Did "Downstairs" create them, or simply supply them from whatever source? |
| 332 | ** Are the monsters "alive" in the conventional sense, or simulacra designed to be neutralized only by specific things? |
| 333 | ** If the former, how are they sustained in the cubicles? |
| 334 | ** If the latter, are they supplied by human belief in such things, do they ''create'' human belief in such things, or are they simply pulled from the anal-equivalent orifice by the Ancient Ones for giggles? |
| 335 | *** OK, well at one point one of the controllers refers to them as "relics of the Old World" or similar and says they are courtesy of "you know who". From this I think we can assume that they are provided by the Ancient Ones but it doesn't follow that they were created by them. In fact "relics of the Old World" suggest they are leftovers from some previous time in history. This might mean the last time the Ancient Ones were awake but that's unlikely given the human shape of many of them. More likely is that there was a time in human history when magic and monsters were common and that time has past but there's things left over that are/causes these monsters. The Ancient Ones either corralled the creatures themselves or gave the controllers the ability to do so to act as the conduit of sacrifice. As to how the sustain themselves, either they don't actually need sustenance or, more likely, the controllers feed them, one by one, ''very'' carefully. |
| 336 | *** Possibly magic and monsters became less and less common in the wider world ''because'' the various organizations responsible for performing these sacrificial rituals developed the means to hold them captive, so rounded them up where they'd be readily available when needed. |
| 337 | |
| 338 | * Holden says he hasn't done Latin for a while, not since 10th grade. He's in ''college''. So it's been a WHOLE FIVE YEARS MAX since he finished 10th grade. Oh yeah, long time. |
| 339 | ** He's about 20, 21. Five years is roughly a quarter of his life. So in context, long time. |
| 340 | ** Also, can YOU remember something difficult that you learned five years ago perfectly? I've had difficulty remembering something I learned even last year without some sort of guide or reference to help re-familiarize myself with it. |
| 341 | *** He does have a reference and way to re-familiarize himself; the Latin in the book. It's been a while, but just because you haven't done something in a few years doesn't mean you've forgotten it. He looks at the lines, sounds it out, and lets his old lessons come back to him. It probably helps that he was been chemically conditioned to be TheSmartGuy of the group. |
| 342 | *** For that matter, the actual phrasing might've been custom-designed so he ''could'' puzzle it out. The controllers clearly researched all their intended sacrifices' lives, so they might have discovered that Holden had taken a Latin class, consulted the course's syllabus, and deliberately revised the diary to include words that his lessons had covered. |
| 343 | *** Holden himself is surprised by how easily he remembers his Latin; it's implied the controllers are fiddling with his mind just like the other characters to force him into TheSmartGuy role. |
| 344 | *** They probably just whispered it in his ear same way they give the gang subliminal messages. |
| 345 | ** I can't remember where I saw it, probably earlier on, but what Holden actually says isn't even accurate to what's actually written. It could also be a not to how random Latin is thrown in to make things much more mysterious and magical. |
| 346 | |
| 347 | * "Humans are more important than Humanity" that's the movie team's explanation for the clusterfuck that is the final few minutes?!? Two scared, pathetic little teens are worth more than all the other '''Seven Billion''' people in the world!?!? We are supposed to see that asshole pothead's actions as a triumph?!? There are men and women and children, with beautiful, fulfilling lives, only possible because someone has the duty to keep the wolves out of the sheepfold, and Marty and Dana are right to let them all die?!? They're both gonna die anyway if the EldritchAbomination gets out, so the two "humans", if they even deserve to be called that at the end, don't even win, they drag the world down with them out of spite. (My problem with the ending, in case I'm not being clear, is that Dana and Marty, as well as the directive team, act as though people are the problem, Dana even says "give someone else a chance". Who else? Once the Ancients finish slaughtering humanity, they'll just go and torture the next group of Sapients. The evil gods are what makes this necessary, not their victims, and they aren't gonna give '''anyone''' else "a chance". And I don't see how WordOfGod can justify their claim those two selfish, hateful monsters' prides are more valuable than all life on Earth. If they hadn't said that, I wouldn't even be making this outburst, I would just take the DownerEnding at face value, but they did say that, they said that Marty and Dana had a triumph in killing themselves and the rest of Humanity, and that they as individuals are worth more than the human race as a whole, and that statement makes me sick. A pair of self-righteous {{Nietzsche Wannabe}}s decide that the entire world should die if they have to, and were expected to accept that as a good, disgusting. |
| 348 | ** On a literal level, you're absolutely correct. On a symbolic level, their "world" represents the current state of the horror movie genre or whatever. So in that context, defying the gods, destroying the status quo, and starting something new makes a fair amount of sense. It's really more of a deconstruction/commentary and less of an attempt at world building. |
| 349 | ** On a less literal level, the Eldrich Horrors in this film are sort of supposed to represent us; the audience. It could be argued that your anger and refusal to accept the ending is exactly the same reaction as the one that causes the Elder Gods to wake and destroy the world. On this level it's quite possible that you're ''supposed'' to disagree with the ending. |
| 350 | ** It's not "if we have to die, everyone has to die". The rituals have been going on since "ancient times." When the Controllers are sure they have the sacrifice in the bag, they still don't bother telling Japan "back off, we got this, you don't have to kill that class full of small children," which implies that even if one ritual is successful, the rest still carry on, and we don't know how many there are - at least four or five, and most likely more all around the world. That is a hell of a lot of people every year, going back who knows how long, dying in incredibly horrible ways. It's entirely possible that more people have died to appease the Ancient Ones than would be saved by Dana and Marty dying. And they flat-out say the Virgin has to suffer, but she can live - after seeing at least four of her friends die horribly at the hands of a monster straight out of a nightmare, which would leave permanent scars on anyone. How is a person supposed to heal after that when no one would believe "Zombie rednecks came to life and tortured all my friends to death and I only barely survived"? Surviving Virgins probably got either jailed for murder or institutionalized for life, and the victims' families would mourn their lost children for the rest of their lives. The message is more "if humanity has to and is willing to perform this unbelievably horrific psychological, physical, and emotional torture on its own on a regular basis, maybe we don't deserve to survive." In this case, the needs of the many are considered not to outweigh the needs of the few. |
| 351 | ** And while we're about it, since when in blistering hell was this about Marty and Dana's "pride?" I think trauma, world-shattering revelations, mortal injuries and being encouraged to kill each other in order to survive had a lot more to do with the ending than "pride." |
| 352 | ** We never really get to see this "world" we're supposed to care about. Maybe in this universe it's more crapsack. |
| 353 | ** There's also the fact that, no "humans matter more than humanity" doesn't make the right to let the ancient ones rise. But it does make them right to not kill each other. Individuals are more able to change human behavior than masses. Think about a gross generalization which you are comfortable making. Now imagine that you learn one of your close friends fits the group you generalized. Suddenly you're a lot less comfortable making that generalization, no? |
| 354 | *** I cannot lie... the ones who organize this ritual are sick. If they had simply this as a necessary evil instead of turning it into their sadistic horror film, [[HumansAreBastards betting on who will kill who]]; they deserve what happened to them. But that does not excuse Marty or Dana. As horrible as the ritual is, what is the point of living another few seconds? What is the point, other than just refusing to be a pawn and die free [[WhatTheHellHero at the cost of everyone else???]] I just can't accept that. There have to people other than the victims who they cared about; their parents and relatives, other friends... I mean REALLY? Do they honestly think this is the right choice? No, it proves that are just shitty humans, with fucked-up moral compasses. Like most teenagers. |
| 355 | *** Because a lot of people do not believe it is moral to force others to die for you. And a lot of people do not believe it is moral to use their life as justification for the killing of others. I am one of the billions that live on Earth, and the Controllers do not get to torture and murder people for me without my permission. My government already does that, and it is wrong there as well. My life is not a pebble to be used when justifying the torture of others. What you have is a basic difference in ethical principles, which is fine. But you cannot assume that your ethics is universal, and that everyone must agree with your reading of the ethics even if they agree with the basic principles. I find it incredibly selfish when people use the lives of others to justify their acts without talking to the people they are saving or protecting. |
| 356 | *** That final line comes off more as projection to me. |
| 357 | ** During the film's commentary, the writers and director point out that their decision is the difference between Youth and Maturity. And that the two teenagers were making the decision from the point of youth, not having the maturity to understand the way adults makes decisions and the reasons they make them for, and say that saving humanity is correct. The movie, while seeming to glorify their decision to end the world, is also showing that this is a tragedy of their perspective, and their ending the world is the right choice, but also the wrong one, as they wanted to have both sides, the teens and the Organization's side be right. |
| 358 | *** Here's a touch of philosophy for you - If people can't be humane to each other, what's so great about humanity? Marty was horrified when he learnt that whole organizations of humans all over the world were working together to set up cruel and ritualistic sacrifice on a yearly basis of young people, to please sadistic Ancient Ones. There must be thousands of people involved per operation and worse, they're all completely numb to these savage slaughters. |
| 359 | *** That depends on one's definition of "being humane". Cruelty to each other has been part of our psyche since the very start of our history, so I think such actions are perfectly humane. But level of intelligence and sophistication put in them is truly admirable and is a sign of Humankind's greatness. |
| 360 | ** I get the symbolism, but on a literal level it made me like Marty less because I always thought that he didn't really care as long as he gets to "stick it to the man". |
| 361 | ** I've always thought there is a much simpler explanation for the ending: BlackComedy. |
| 362 | ** Given Whedon’s nihilism, yes, the lives of two teenagers are worth seven billion lives. And indeed, because they are scared and pathetic, and who is it that made them that way? Whedon is exploring the meaning of humanity not delving into popcorn cynicism or applauding pseudo-Nietzschean [[StrawNihilist straw nihilism.]] And yes, we’re supposed to see their actions as a triumph. Perhaps misguided, but the moral conundrum of the film is expediency to live vs. dutiful sacrifice. And we see true sacrifices: Marty risks himself against the clearly mad and possibly homicidal Mordecai because he was rude to his friend. The control room security chief [[MeaningfulName Daniel Truman]] risking his life to save others, even if it’s just for another few moments and finally [[TakingYouWithMe using a grenade to kill himself along with]] the scarecrows. Curt risking his life for his friends to jump the canyon. All these are knowing, willing sacrifices and that’s what differentiates them from the expedient sacrifices. The paradox flaw in the Organization’s morality is demanding an individual sacrifice themselves to the community without allowing the individual the right to be considered part of the community. And that’s where Whedon’s atheism comes in. There is no hope of something after the release of the Ancient Ones, but human community still matters. The only ones participating in any sort of community are the ones making knowing sacrifices. Contrast Daniel Truman’s refusal to enter the betting pool and his ultimate sacrifice with Wendy Lin’s apologetic hypocrisy and blowing others off attempting to save herself. Or Gary’s urging Dana to kill Marty. Well, why not kill him yourself Gary? Because he doesn’t want the responsibility and he’s a coward. Sure, the Ancient Ones have “rules” blah blah. But those are all clearly shown for the lies that they are. The rules aren’t that strict. They “work with what they have.” And people don’t have to choose to cruelly, and by implication more and more sadistically as time goes on, torture and kill young people. The people in The Organization are only doing it because they want to live and they’re afraid and not willing to make the sacrifices themselves. Where are their children? Where are their friends and loved ones? Marty and Dana on the other hand are continually shown to be willing to endanger themselves for someone else because they are compassionate. At the end they’re not willing to simply roll over and die because of someone else’s cowardice and lack of compassion. The meaning of one or two lives is no different than the meaning in ten billion. Certainly, the math works in terms of which is preferable to sacrifice. But existence doesn’t work that way. If numbers are all that matter then ten billion potatoes are worth more than two lives because there’s more. Hell, three potatoes are worth more than two human lives using that metric. But because lives have meaning and humans are part of a community, there is more to human existence than merely existing in sufficient numbers. Again, this is in universe. Whedon’s values. But they draw from a lot of IRL philosophical sources. So the idea it’s a stoner and some bitch deciding to selfishly end the world is misplaced. When they say “give someone else a turn” it’s in direct contrast to the stagnated worldview of The Organization that clearly holds human history/existence as a closed system. Dana and Marty accept that transformations can, and do occur, even for the catastrophically worst case scenario. And that takes moral courage. The kind of moral courage for a sacrifice that’s conspicuous by its absence. We see all kinds of pagan ritual sacrifices that are essentially empty paeans to pacify fear and cowardice in the face of existential emptiness. We do not see Christ’s sacrifice. And again, this is from the film’s perspective, I’m not attempting to lay a Christian trip on Whedon. But Christ was resigned to his fate and went to it knowingly. In contrast to the quite clearly and visually striking terrifying pagan rituals. The former is about hope and possibility. The latter is about an endlessly unchanging fixed reality that, at best, continually repeats itself. And that’s repeatedly stated. What’s the old line about insanity doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results? The Organization may be more practical, more grown up, more willing to compromise, but nothing they’ve done has changed anything in, by their own words, thousands of years. They have no expectation beyond causing more and more, and worse and worse, pain and suffering for eternity. Their moral failing is they refuse to accept death. They’re perfectly willing to power their world [[PoweredByAForsakenChild by forsaken children]] and they’re [[Literature/TheOnesWhoWalkAwayFromOmelas not willing to walk away]] Ever. Marty and Dana however are willing to roll the dice and accept death and change. That may be a more adult decision since there’s no expectation that they’re going to “save the world” somehow or anything will turn out all ok in the end. But, like mature adults, they accept their fate without destroying their humanity or murdering and torturing others in a temper tantrum because [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the universe doesn’t care.]]There is an anthology exploring these ideas in: [[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17804784-joss-whedon-and-religion/ Joss Whedon and Religion: Essays on an Angry Atheist's Explorations of the Sacred]]. |
| 363 | *** But the Controllers are not "doing the same thing and expecting different results." The entirety of the operation is based on doing the same thing and expecting ''the same results'', because the results in question ''prevent the destruction of the world.'' "Seeing what comes next" is going to result in one of two things: Utter destruction of everything or a world where some other lifeform emerges and becomes dominant, a lifeform that will return to the performance of ritual murder because they'll still have to deal with the Ancient Ones, who given what little we know of them will likely continue to exist for as long as the world exists. In the case of destruction, "what comes next" is nonexistence; in the case of a new dominant lifeform, the cycle simply continues, only there's 7 billion people gone because two traumatized teenagers decided that if they and their friends had to die everyone else might as well die with them. Additionally, if the Organization's "moral flaw" is that they expect the sacrifices to die without giving them the chance to make that choice, what makes Dana and Marty any better? Not only do they condemn a planet's worth of people to, at best, a quick death (at worst an extended torture, given the Ancient Ones' apparent power and tastes in entertainment) but they give the rest of the world even less choice than they themselves were given: They had the choice to turn back after encountering Mordecai, despite not knowing the stakes at the time. The rest of the world doesn't even get that much from our two brave heroes, and this mass death isn't even a sacrifice because that would mean an expectation that something good would result; when the ritual sacrifices die, it's to preserve the world. When Marty and Dana let the world end it's because they've given up, not enough to simply die but apparently enough to take everyone with them. Ultimately, Marty and Dana ''didn't'' accept their fate, even or especially after the Director explained why it was necessary. The argument that they were somehow representative of "the real human community" or that they "understood mature decision-making" or "had superior moral courage" is hollow because we see none of that demonstrated at the end. When confronted with the reason, when they knew that these deaths were required to prevent the End of the World, they didn't take a second to think about all the people they were condemning to likely worse torment and death than what happened to their friends. Dana and Marty ''are'' murdering and torturing others by proxy, just like the Controllers, but on a vastly larger scale, without the intention of creating something better. Their actions are less a temper tantrum and more the sulking of children: If I can't go to recess (that is, live happily ignorant), then the rest of the class can't either. In fact, Marty and Dana's actions are far closer to those of the Ancient Ones: By the end of the movie, they're content to destroy everything without thought for anyone else because things don't or can't go the way they want it to. Dana and Marty's decision may be understandable, given everything they've been through, but it's nothing but reflexive action at best, utter selfishness at worst. From my own perspective, we're only told how bad the Ancient Ones are by people who are afraid of them and have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and who are shown to be fairly impotent in a number of ways (Hadley's having fertility issues, and is generally hostile to the changes a child will bring; the youth having sex vs. the older ones just watching/talking about it, and hostile to real sex; plenty of other examples; on a meta-level Sigourney Weaver's casting alludes to ''Alien'' and the rape/victimization terror sexuality there, plus the Evil Dead rape trees, all that) vs. the maybe a bit unhealthy (Dana sleeping with her professor) but potent and fertile sexuality of the protagonists. Even sexual potency aside, the information, the basic courage and effectiveness of The Organization in fighting the monsters is definitely not unquestionable. How inviolate can the "rules" be, how "unstoppable" are the monsters and Ancient Ones and how "inevitable" can the end of the world be if a classroom full of 9 year old girls can derail their plans? They didn't even have automatic weapons. They turned a ghost into a happy frog with just teamwork and joy and all they got for it was invective(s) from Gary. |
| 364 | *** "Or Gary’s urging Dana to kill Marty. Well, why not kill him yourself Gary? Because he doesn’t want the responsibility and he’s a coward." That's incredibly stupid. He doesn't kill him, because he's dying, he immediately drops dead after he tells her to kill him. |
| 365 | *** I didn't see the ending as Dana and Marty condemning humanity or declaring it didn't "deserve" to live. Recall Marty's rant early on where he talks of how society is trash yet its inhabitants just let it be trash instead of taking charge and doing something to fix it. When he says the Ancient Ones leaving their hideout with whatever consequences to come are what's "meant to be" he's telling Ms. Director that her organization's murders to appease the [=AOs=] are cowardly, that they're killing off innocents to appease old beasts instead of telling the monsters to buzz off consequences be damned. Dana saying to give "someone else a chance" is saying that a humanity at the point of being groomed to be ritually butchered for the jollies of monsters on threat of whatever those monsters will do to it is a humanity that's been ruined and that it's time for a major change, even if it'll come from whoever succeeds mankind. The possible successors just might try to do something about the [=AOs=] whether they win or not. The Organization and whoever preceded them as far as we know didn't try to fight, just let humans be butchered for the [=AOs=], acts of betrayal. It's taking a stand against abuse even if you die instead of enabling that abuse. |
| 366 | ** Simple: Dana and Marty are {{Doomed Moral Victor}}s. |
| 367 | ** Incidentally, Marty and Dana weren't talking about giving other ''humans'' a chance. If anything, they were talking about leaving the Earth to whatever evolves after us: to the chimps or elephants or dolphins, or even the happy frogs. Which presumably ''wouldn't'' be callous enough to purchase their dominance of the planet with the blood and misery of their young. |
| 368 | *** That's nothing more than misanthropy. Rooted in contempt, not an appraisement of reality. Neither you or Dana or Marty have any way to show that any other sophont lifeforms behave kinder than humans do. Which knowing the above {{Word of God}} that {{Both Sides Have A Point}}, really comes off as trying to spin the knowledge that at least they're doomed to die (and maybe along with their families) as a positive since they have nothing else to be proud of. |
| 369 | *** Presumption based on what? Whatever world would end up after Ancient Ones were done with it, it would be shaped by them, meaning it's going to be either same or worse. |
| 370 | ** So much of the arguing over the ending is flawed since we have to depend on the word of {{Unreliable Narrator}}s (and a {{Word of God}} that actually doesn't tell that much) who'd have unsurprisingly claim that what they do is the only way since it'd be easier on their consciences. We do not know if the Ancient Ones are unbeatable or if the movie is just a case of tradition combined with fear holding man back. And even if they are, we're repeatedly shown that the facility is sloppily run (hence the big red button that unleashes all the monsters) which if anything shows that sooner or later they'd screw-up and doom the world anyway. Also, keep in mind that Dana DID raise the gun at Marty and had to get ripped up by a werewolf to drop it. Sure, she claimed that she wouldn't have shot him but that comes from her when she's bleeding out and has nobody else to die with besides him. It might have been the case that the werewolf was really the one who doomed the world by mortally wounding Dana who would've indeed killed Marty in time. With her talk about "giving" someone else a chance just a last-minute attempt to console herself and Marty in light of their impending deaths (and possibly their families too) combined with the knowledge that she failed to save all of those she cares about. Hell, we don't even know if the Ancient Ones intend to destroy humanity, subjugate humanity, or even reset the world/humanity to make it more interesting for them having gotten bored with the same old (akin to remakes and reboots and re-imaginings a la ''[[Film/TheMummy1999 The Mummy]]'' is to the films with Creator/BrendanFraser). |
| 371 | |
| 372 | * This has likely been asked in a different way and I'm not picking up on it, but the premise of the film is that the Ancient Gods get snippy if there's any deviation from the Core Plot, just like horror audiences in real life are. In a (made up) word: ''bwah''? Horror movies change and shakeup their respective cliches over time, because audiences get used to the cliches. Wouldn't the Ancient Gods get used to the cliches as well, and actively enjoy the surprise? The movie states that the System changes over time, so why is "Hold On The Stoner Isn't Dead Yet" cause so much of an issue? The payoff of surprise would be worth it for audiences, why not the Ancient Gods? I suppose you could argue that Ancient Gods are a bit 'slower' to get bored of (and thus want changes to the Core Plot) than human audiences are, but that line of thought would lead to the System relying on tropes that were popular ''before'' Athlete/Whore/Brains/Virgin slashers became popular. |
| 373 | ** FridgeBrilliance: The Ancient Ones, whatever else they might be, are ''half asleep'' when they watch the rituals, and the last thing humanity can afford is for them to wake up fully. The controllers want to show them a bedtime story that's amusing to their sick sensibilities, yet also routine enough '''not''' to get them aroused and thinking. |
| 374 | |
| 375 | * It seems like the various monsters are all trained to save the virgin for last, but then why was Matthew Buckner going all in on Dana at the lake even though Marty was still alive? Further, why did the werewolf go after Dana in the facility when she was actually on the cusp of fulfilling the ritual (as far as any observers were aware anyway) by offing Marty? |
| 376 | ** Firstly, I'm not sure if ''all'' the monsters are trained - or can be trained. For example, minutes after Dana was mauled by the werewolf, Patience Buckner deliberately ignores her in order to attack Marty and/or the Director; this suggests that some monsters are more aware of the ritual or more susceptible to training than others, as does Sitterson's remarks that the Buckners have "a 100% rating." Secondly, I presume Matthew went all out on Dana because, like the controllers, he assumed that Judah had successfully killed Marty and everything was on schedule- after all, the Buckners don't appear to be guided by any kind of HiveMind. Thirdly, it can be assumed that most of the monsters had completely slipped the leash by this stage and were just massacring people ForTheEvulz; after all, once Marty starts shooting at the werewolf, it doesn't attack him- it runs off, presumably in search of weaker prey. |
| 377 | *** Or maybe Patience refrained from attacking Dana because, unlike the werewolf or any of the other Carnage monsters, she hadn't been set free without instructions, but was still acting out the scenario intended by the controllers. The other monsters probably didn't even know that Dana ''was'' the Virgin for the current ritual and hence, needed to be left alone: she was just another human to them. |
| 378 | ** The monsters appear to be aware of their confinement, and angry with it - as prisoners, they do their job and kill the Sacrifices in the correct sequence. Once set free, however, they decided to focus on getting revenge on their captors. At least, that's my justification for how the sacrifices survived in the facility while everyone else got massacred. |
| 379 | ** Back when they were alive, the Buckners were ''pain worshiping torture obsessed psychopaths'', by choice or by indoctrination. Matthew was beating her, gouging her, throwing her around, breaking her... But he wasn't killing her. |
| 380 | *** Which perfectly fits with typical horror movie deaths: when a character needs to die, the villain/monster simply kills them within seconds. When the character needs to survive, the monster suddenly switches to throwing them around and performing a lot of non-lethal attacks, or something slow like gradual strangulation, even though they'd previously acted purely through pragmatism (or at least something definitely fatal) or even demonstrated superhuman strength. The Virgin's death isn't required and is "decided by fate", so Matthew Buckner beating the crap out of her instead of simply snapping her neck and tossing her into the lake is intentionally genre-appropriate. |
| 381 | *** Indeed, notice that the werewolf also went for less than lethal tactics. It mauled her shoulder instead of doing something instantly lethal, like tearing out her throat or something. |
| 382 | *** That could just be because the monsters are trained to make the sacrifices' suffering last a while. ''That's'' what the Ancient audience really wants, is prolonged suffering and terror; if ''quick'' deaths sufficed, the controllers could have just waited until Dana stepped outside for some fresh air and then gassed everyone else to death, starting with Jules's room. |
| 383 | ** A comment is made about the gas lines being cut. Presumably the monsters are controlled with mind gas, just like the sacrifices. So Patience is still affected since she was dosed earlier, but none of the other monsters are being controlled like they would be if they were released properly. |
| 384 | |
| 385 | * Several lines and scenes imply that there's a variability to the level at which a scenario "succeeds". It is clear that each culture has some absolute requirements, namely that the archetypes MUST die by sunrise and it MUST be in the right order. But what about things that seem more optional, like: |
| 386 | ** Boobs. Would the world have ended if Jules didn't take her top off before getting stabbed? |
| 387 | *** Not necessarily. There are horror movies where the Whore doesn't end up topless, at least not in full view of the camera. The important part is that she is "corrupted", meaning having sex. |
| 388 | ** Getting "made". Why were they so concerned about Marty finding the camera? The fact that Dana and Holden witnessed the invisible forcefield didn't seem to blow the ritual, so what does it really matter if they discover some outside force is manipulating things? |
| 389 | *** The forcefield is a last resort; there are clearly various practical means of stopping the victims from escaping, such as the collapsing tunnel. The forcefield also doesn't necessarily indicate manipulation, but finding that someone is filming you while it happens ''does''. Dana pieced together the reality of things because Marty had previously been telling her that he was afraid that they were being controlled. |
| 390 | ** And by the time they know about the forcefield, they only have to kill off Holden and the ritual is done. It doesn't matter what Dana does with herself (they don't know Marty survived at this point). The reason Marty finding the camera throws a SpannerInTheWorks is because they still have to blow through three victims. |
| 391 | ** The lengths to which they must go to "work with what they have". How far is acceptable? Presumably getting a perfect archetypal match is a better "show", but what does "better" actually mean? |
| 392 | *** That's why they have the mind-altering gases and pheromones. All of them clearly fit into their archetypes (except Marty, which is a plot point, and even he slips into the Fool of his own accord) only when they're drugged into it. |
| 393 | ** The victims must "choose", but they're allowed to be manipulated in countless ways. How much manipulation is possible before it's not a "choice"? |
| 394 | *** The actual manipulation at that point is subtle, such as subliminal audio and gradually mind-altering gases. Presumably even ignoring everything in the cellar would still result in a transgression being made or found, such as Jules making out with the wolf head bringing in the werewolf. |
| 395 | *** The very fact that the Fool's bas relief shows that archetype holding a glass of booze, and that a known stoner was selected to play that role, would suggest that not being in your right mind isn't enough to negate the legitimacy of one's choice, for the ritual's purposes. If the Fool is usually drunk or stoned and yet, still eligible for sacrifice, there's no reason why all five can't be drugged or goaded subliminally and remain suitable. |
| 396 | ** They complain that Japan was a ''total'' loss with ''no'' deaths, which implies a partial loss might be possible. What benefit would that have? |
| 397 | *** I think you're interpreting dialogue too literally. |
| 398 | *** This story was a "partial" loss and it resulted in total failure. Maybe a bunch of partial successes would work, but since the Americans were the last ones standing, it had to go smoothly. |
| 399 | *** The total loss thing is most likely just there for the sake of talking about it and evaluations to make it easier to compare the sacrifices with each other. You could even call what we had in the movie close to a success, as the Virgin ''almost'' kills the Fool shortly before sunrise. But in the end, almost doesn't count. |
| 400 | *** Maybe Japan's rules are similar to America's, in that one person (the Virgin in America) is allowed to survive as long as the rest die. If one of the little girls had managed to trap the ghost in a frog after the rest of her classmates had all died, maybe that would've counted as a win. |
| 401 | ** The general horror tone of the entire affair. Would it still work if you took away or mitigated the creepy painting? The wolf head? The nighttime? The run-down-ness of the cabin? |
| 402 | *** The story is intentionally meant to replicate what we know as a "typical horror movie." It doesn't seem like these movies exist in the film universe, as not even the most genre savvy character makes the connection. The creepiness is probably part of the American ritual, just like the Japanese ritual fits modern horror influenced by Japanese folklore. |
| 403 | ** So clearly there are a lot of elements besides simply the deaths that make it "what they want", but not all of them are necessary. Is there simply a certain threshold of unsatisfactory elements at which point the Ancients decide "not good enough, world ends", even if all the deaths occur? Maybe this is a cumulative process, so that if the controllers get too lazy over several years, it's game over, but they can make up for a lame story by putting on a pitch perfect production the next time? Either way, the existence of an all-or-nothing cutoff for minor conditions that are not discrete seems really arbitrary! |
| 404 | ** The whole point is that it IS arbitrary. The Ancient Ones are an AudienceSurrogate, representing the general public that demands cliche, formulaic blockbusters over something artistic or unique. Small things can be changed, but there are certain specific expectations that must be met in order to satisfy the audience. Someone who wants a formulaic ''Friday The 13th'' wouldn't be satisfied by a movie where the stoner teams up with the virgin and they both decide to commit suicide together before Jason can kill them. The Ancient Ones have made their demands, and too much deviation from the plot will anger them and cause them to rise up. |
| 405 | ** Most likely, the concept of "% success" or "partial failure" don't mean squat to the Ancient Ones, who either judge a ritual satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Rather, estimates of ''how badly'' a ritual was botched would be used for the Facility's internal performance reviews afterwards ... that is, assuming some other nation's success ensured there ''was'' an "afterwards". |
| 406 | |
| 407 | * When the Fool and the Virgin meet with The Director in person, why doesn't the Director try to kill the Fool? If the ritual is SO IMPORTANT TO SAVING EVERYONE, and The Director is 100% committed to the ritual, I don't understand why she would need to convince the Virgin to kill the Fool. Is it "against the rules" somehow? The Director had The Fool within point-blank range. |
| 408 | ** Perhaps the ritual won't work if she does it? Maybe it's the equivalent to a movie director killing a character off by simply writing them out with no onscreen death. Maybe she was worried that the Fool being killed by her would piss of the Ancient Ones even more. Having him killed by either a monster or the Virgin would have been much more entertaining for them. Note that none of the workers simply leave poison or fatal traps in the cabin for the teens to fall into. A monster has to kill them for the Ancient Ones to be appeased. |
| 409 | *** Not necessary. Curt got killed by the ritual grounds' perimeter force field, not a monster, yet the Ancient Ones didn't "complain" about his accidental demise the way they'd grumbled about Marty's false one. |
| 410 | ** The Director does try to kill him. Did you miss the whole scene where she fights with him on the ground and got axed in the head by Patience? As for why she doesn't shoot him, I guess she just doesn't carry a gun. Not like anybody else had a gun besides security. |
| 411 | |
| 412 | * So the warning from the gas station attendant was basically "that cabin is bad news"? Wouldn't that make the transgression merely be ''going to the cabin''? To fit the Western horror archetype, shouldn't the warning have been "don't go into the cellar", or even "don't mess with anything in the cellar"? |
| 413 | ** Maybe it would've blown his cover. After all, why would he know what's in the cellar? He would've had to explain why he was in the cabin, and any explanation might've tipped the group off to run ("this creepy fuck used to live in the cabin? Let's not go there"). Whereas warning them about the cabin just requires him to have been in the area and seen many groups go and never return. |
| 414 | |
| 415 | * Presumably these ritual sacrifices have been going on for thousands of years. So how'd they manage to pull them off thousands of years ago, with just primitive technology? |
| 416 | ** You know all those myths and legends, passed down through oral tradition, about some idiot getting himself killed (or worse) after incurring the wrath of the heavens? |
| 417 | *** But every year, they set a group of people up to enact a horror story archetypal to that region, manipulate the victims into following the story, set out monsters to kill them, then store the monsters to use again next year. How do they manipulate the victims and control the monsters without high-tech? |
| 418 | ** Shoved a virgin into a volcano? |
| 419 | ** Before modern tech, you didn't ''need'' a massive force-screen to isolate people, you just sent them on a wild goose chase to the nearest killer monster's lair. Tough luck getting away on foot. |
| 420 | ** Who knows how long this tech has been available? Clearly their tech is more advanced than what the outside world has as they have access to chemicals to alter the mind in very specific ways, an invisible forcefield powerful enough to disintegrate a bird, a complex elevator system, and glass cells capable of holding a ghost in place. |
| 421 | ** You’re missing the point entirely. The movie clearly establishes that the “old fashion way” was human sacrifice, a practice that was common to basically all human cultures in the world. |
| 422 | ** Perhaps the ritual sacrifices were relatively simple at first, requiring only that people who fit the archetypes be captured and killed in the right order, but as time went on and the Ancient Ones got bored, they started making more specific demands. |
| 423 | * If several of these rituals take place around the world every year and have had more than one failure in the past, how are these stories of monsters kept a secret? The cabin in the woods is secluded enough, but what about the [[http://thecabininthewoods.wikia.com/wiki/Giant_Ape giant horned ape corpse]] from Buenos Aires? What about the classroom full of 9-year olds? What about any failures in the past with survivors who have witnessed these events, and may even possess some form of proof that something supernatural attacked them and ''does'' exist? |
| 424 | ** I always just assumed the Controllers of each country's ritual [[DownerEnding destroy all the evidence, manufacture a cover-up story, and discreetly kill any survivors/witnesses once the ritual has concluded.]] After all, the Ancient Ones never stipulated that the Virgin or the 9-year-old girls can't get a bullet in the brain after all is said and done, did they? |
| 425 | *** Exactly. Notice how on the monitors the surroundings are on fire and everything in the immediate vicinity is destroyed? The organization probably blows everything up after it's clear they will lose. |
| 426 | *** Yeah, because everyone is going to believe a 9-year-old when she says her classmates were killed by a ghost. If this universe represents all horror movies then there’s your answer, in most horror movies, including sequels, people is amazingly skeptical and don’t believe monsters exist, nor they believe the survivors' story. We have several tropes about it; ArbitrarySkepticism, ScullySyndrome, WeirdnessCensor, HollywoodAtheist, etc. And no, I doubt they kill the survivor girl, to some extend is possible that the “urban legend” that born after the survivor tells her story feed the myth and the coming of new victims. Something similar of how ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet'' movies work. |
| 427 | ** Or if the Virgin survives, there's a protocol in place to memory wipe her or brainwash her into thinking her friends just died in a tragic accident. |
| 428 | * How did Patience get back up the elevator? Marty had to really mess around with the controls to get them back up, she didn't look all that clever. |
| 429 | ** Despite their lack of fine motor skills and undead status, the Buckners actually do seem pretty intelligent. They're obviously not mindless zombies as they have the ability to wield weapons. They also have enough intelligence to retain their sadism, such as restraining Curt instead of killing him so he can watch Jules die, and then releasing him so he can scare the others. The first part is due to the ritual, as Jules had to die first, but there was no reason to set him free afterwards instead of killing him other than for their amusement. So maybe she did have intelligence to hop on the elevator. |
| 430 | ** The elevator could've automatically returned to the cabin after Marty got off, since the Buckners were still technically in play. With everybody apparently dead, Patience would've returned to the grave, and got in her cell. Hers was brought down like all the others during the Purge (why hers took so long is a mystery; maybe there's just an odd number of cells, that's divisible by number of elevator doors with a remainder of one. |
| 431 | ** Or it just took her a while to confirm that there was nobody left to kill "upstairs". It's likely that none of the Buckners actually witnessed what happened to Curt, so Patience presumably spent some time looking for him. |
| 432 | * Why did ALL of the countries suddenly fail this year? America I get, because Marty. But the rest? Coincidentally? Was it to raise the tension, up the ante, or was something more sinister behind it? |
| 433 | ** Maybe the other countries just suck? It has been said that this wasn't the first time it's been down to America and Japan. America and Japan were the only two countries stated to have good records, with America only having one previous failure and Japan having a perfect record up until the movie. |
| 434 | *** Also, since Japan never fails and America has only failed once, the other countries might not even really be trying - after all, "success" means people die, and if they're confident Japan and America will carry things they might deliberately half-ass it because they don't want unnecessary deaths. |
| 435 | ** In a meta-context, it seems to be a jab at how America and Japan appear to be the main exporters of horror movies. |
| 436 | * Why didn't they just drop a nuke on the Ancient Ones? |
| 437 | ** Why would the Organization have access to a nuclear bomb? And the Ancient Ones effectively being like a god, it's debatable if physical means like a bomb, even an extraordinarily powerful bomb, would even work. |
| 438 | ** Who said it had to be the Organization? Presumably the military knows about this and by extension the government. Seems like something the Joint Chiefs needed to run by the President at some point. |
| 439 | ** There are multiple Ancient Ones scattered all over the world, and they're clearly aware of what's happening at the other facilities, since only one ritual has to work right to appease them all. Therefore, it'd be necessary to take them ''all'' out simultaneously. Even assuming every country that has an Ancient agreed to such a plan, and that all the bombs could be correctly placed and set off all at once, who's to say the Ancients wouldn't detect what was going on before such an operation could be completed? If the one under the Cabin could sense Curt and Jules getting it on or that Marty was still alive, it could surely sense that a nuke was being brought to the site. |
| 440 | * More specifically, why didn't they have a self-destruct option for the ''whole facility''? So long as the Whore dies first, it's evidently not essential that the Virgin survive; she just can't die ''sooner'' than any of the male sacrifices. If it's acceptable to the Ancient Ones for a Virgin to die ''at the same time'' as the last of the guys, then giving the besieged controllers the means to blow up the entire base and kill everyone simultaneously might've saved the rest of the world. |
| 441 | ** Well, most likely because that would have simply been boring. |
| 442 | ** The facility represents horror movie makers. They didn't take any of the obvious ways they could have prevented the supposed apocalypse like the mentioned self-destruct since they're ultimately too complacent in their work to go off-script. |
| 443 | * Was the Japanese segment a parody of a specific thing? I don't know that many J-Horrors that have happy endings but then again, I'm not very familiar with any J-Horror the Japanese recognized as trite and overdone. Same question with the Argentinian NoodleIncident. I want to see Argentinians take on a King Kong clone! |
| 444 | ** It turned the Japanese horror flick ending on its head. Instead of nobody surviving, everybody did. Instead of corrupting and massacring a class of helpless Japanese school girls, the vengeful spirit is exorcised using the power of love and reborn as happy animal. It was the exact OPPOSITE of what the Ancient Ones wanted in a Japanese sacrifice, and the exact opposite of what we see in those types of horror flicks. A parody of J-horror in general, and I think its funny because there is a "magical girl" type element to the ending as well, making it nauseatingly cute. A total failure! |
| 445 | * The girl in the ballerina dress with multiple rows of teeth in place of a face is the sugarplum fairy, right? Why is it called that? |
| 446 | ** Her name is a reference to the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies from Tchaikovsky's [[Theatre/TheNutcracker Nutcracker Suite]], which dance is one of the most commonly taught to and performed by pre-teen girls, such as the Fairy appears to be. |
| 447 | * Just how old Fornicus is supposed to be? Those saw blades look pretty modern. |
| 448 | ** He may upgrade his look each time he's summoned to the Cabin. A previous batch of sacrifices might have brought some tools along, thinking they'd fix the place up a bit. |
| 449 | ** Or his containment cube got parked next to the killer robot's at some point, and he ''really'' liked the look of its weaponry. |
| 450 | * Why did Curt and Holden had to basically be remade into a heavier version of one another when they had the drugs to change their behavior according to the stereotypes? It's a waste of work and makes no sense. |
| 451 | ** Well Curt was made into the Athlete because he was Jules's boyfriend. The Athlete is matched better with the Whore. Holden meanwhile was the single guy, so it was easier to put him as the Scholar. |
| 452 | ** It's also FridgeBrilliance about the Controllers' complete misreading of the college kids. None of them fit the roles they are assigned, as addressed higher up on the page. Their EstablishingCharacterMoment and the second half characteristics they have don't fit. "We work with what we have." Just not that well. |
| 453 | *** It could be a metaphor for the miscasting of actors or the criticism of bad actors in horror films. |
| 454 | *** Or even for how many ''genuinely good'' actors renowned for drama or comedy [[OldShame started out their careers in low-budget horror]], and/or how comedy actors try to shed their goofy image by [[PlayingAgainstType taking contrary-to-expectation roles]] in psychological thrillers. |
| 455 | * In the movie it's revealed they haven't complete control over the sacrifices, so what would've happened if, say, it was Dana who rode the motorcycle, or the zombie mistakenly killed Dana in the van? I mean, we see the Gods waiting until the end to release their rage, so it seems pretty unlikely that they would've ended the world then and there... |
| 456 | ** The gods only waited for the end because the ritual clause wasn't violated till sunrise. The second that did happen (possibly even a bit before that even, since less time passes in the movie than the director says there is till sunrise), they started breaking free. |
| 457 | ** They would have been able to stop Dana from riding the motorcycle somehow. Note how they shock the knife when she's holding it to make her drop it. Curt only tries the stunt because he's been brainwashed into being the alpha male figure. |
| 458 | * So, what was the deal with the one-way mirror? The painting is presumably a generic horror warning, like Mordecai, while most of the other odd items would be triggers for various monsters. We're not sure about the wolf's head, but even if it isn't the trigger for the werewolf, it's something that fits right at home with the general aesthetic of the cabin. The mirror on the other hand? It's not really got anything to do with horror clichés (at least, as far as I'm aware), it's not a trigger, it doesn't seem to fit any of the monsters in general, it's not a common feature of generic creepy cabins (again, as far as I'm aware), and it actively threatens the intended characterization by making 'the Virgin' more attracted to 'the Scholar'. What was the point of including it in the scenario? |
| 459 | ** Maybe a scenario involving a vampire? Someone sees through to the other side where a vampire is approaching a victim looking at him or herself in the mirror. They call through that the vampire is "right behind you!" but the other person can't see the reflection. |
| 460 | ** Probably it's something left over from before the Chem Department had perfected its pheromones. The controllers used to arrange for the Whore and Athlete to share those rooms, the better to engineer the former's "corruption" on schedule. Now it's just another disturbing element to prime the creeps-me-out pump. |
| 461 | ** The Directors say that the teens have to "transgress" - they have to do something that they can be punished for. The mirror provides one opportunity for them to transgress by being a voyeur. Holden and Dana both spoil that part of the ritual by refusing the temptation to watch the other one naked. |
| 462 | * ButWhatAboutTheAstronauts |
| 463 | ** Its a Joss Whedon movie so I'm assuming Firefly. |
| 464 | * We "know" that the "failure" in '98 was probably a reference to The Faculty, but what about the horror movie playing out in Japan? Is it a reference to any movie? Because I've seen quite a few Japanese horror movies and I have to say, none of them involved Japanese school girls fighting a poltergeist by turning it into a happy frog. But if this movie exists I really want to know about it so I can watch it. It sounds awesome! |
| 465 | ** The school girls and frog, no idea. But the StringyHairedGhostGirl seems to be a reference to ''{{Film/Ringu}}''. |
| 466 | ** This tropette doesn't think that the schoolgirls and frog thing is related to anything in Japanese ''horror'', but ''culture'' (or history). |
| 467 | ** It's a send-up of Japanese horror cliches in general, thus we have the stringy-haired ghost girl from ''The Ring'', ''The Grudge'', etc. The terrorizing of schoolgirls and the magical transformation into a happy frog is lampshading that, unless you happen to be familiar with Japanese culture, folklore, and mythology, a lot of J-Horror ''just doesn't make sense'' to Western audiences. |
| 468 | * Given the changes in "ritual" in modern horror movies, where is the representation of metafiction? These days, you're more likely to see {{Audience Surrogate}}s in metafictional horror movies as the villains anyway, from people who embody the worst stereotypes in fans, to facilities representing all horror filmmakers everywhere like the Facility, to plots about creation and stagnation. Sure, some of those "Ancient Ones" out there might see these as a breath of fresh air, but with enough of it showing up in other genres, they're likely to see a "the enemy is the viewer" aesop coming from a mile away. Hell, being GenreSavvy is practically a ritual requirement in some circles. |
| 469 | * Does anyone wonder how things would of played out if nobody was gas'd into becoming stereotypes but "the virgin" still read from the book and the zombies still came. |
| 470 | ** The humans would have been together and probably would have won. The zombies weren't particularly fast or agile, so them laying siege to a cabin full of intelligent, organized humans probably would have ended with their destruction. |
| 471 | ** Jules and Curt would have been unlikely to fool around in the woods as well. They had to really pump them full of toxins and release pheromones into the area to get them to. |
| 472 | * How would the Merman kill them all had it been selected? It doesn't seem very mobile, and there is only one of it. |
| 473 | ** If he's selected, they probably use their tech to cause a flood. The result is something similar to the movie "Crawl", where they get picked off one by one as the area floods. Someone blows the conch, someone in the organization pulls a lever, and it immediately starts "raining" heavily. |
| 474 | ** Jules and Curt could easily be manipulated into going skinny dipping instead of fooling around in the woods. Rather than Jules being obviously killed, the merman could carry her off and the others be prompted into searching for her via the lake. They could drive the RV into the lake as well to make them easy prey for the merman too. |
| 475 | * Who the '''Hell''' thought putting a bug red button that floods the facility with monsters was a good idea? Sure the following massacre scene is awesome for the audience, but who InUniverse thought that was a good idea?! |
| 476 | * After watching the movie, something has been bugging me. Why go to all of the trouble of tricking five college kids into doing this without the kids knowing, when it would be cheaper to just "pay" college kids to do this by offering to clear some sort of debt, or do something for a family member? After all, by accepting, they would have doomed themselves despite knowing the risks, and the Organization wouldn't even have to say that they would die, just that they would pay them to go on this trip. Alternatively, why not have the "Virgin" be a collaborator, since she can actually potentially survive, and use her to get revenge on 4 people she doesn't like? |
| 477 | ** Because if you play off the characters' greed, make it more overtly a set-up, and throw a treacherous ringer into the mix, you'd wind up with more of a psychological thriller than a straight-up horror movie? |
| 478 | ** Then they also risk there being a paper trail, witnesses or other connections tying them to the ritual - which is to be kept top secret. The Virgin sometimes survives as well, meaning they'd have to account for that too. Since they have the technology to do everything without telling the teens and can lure them in without such a scheme, that's probably the option they prefer. |
| 479 | ** Because the rules state it has to be a ''punishable transgression'', not a HeroicSacrifice (even if not necessarily too heroic). |
| 480 | ** Paid volunteers would expect a catch. Not necessarily a deadly one, but they would be more on the lookout for anything that might surprise them, and that removes some of the authenticity of them being horror movie characters, who usually come upon the horror element completely unexpectedly. |
| 481 | * At about the midpoint, Curt, Holden, and Dana are outside trying to escape. Dana asks where Marty is and Curt says "they got him". How does Curt know? From the earlier seen when Marty says Holden has a "husband bulge" he's walking in from what seems like the far back of the cabin, so his room seems pretty isolated. Curt's been barricading the doors the whole time and is explicitly outside Dana and Holden's rooms when they find the black room.He had basically no time to go to Marty's room, and even if he did, all he'd see is a broken window. Was he just guessing? Him and Marty seem like pretty close friends, so even drugged up it seems kind of callous to just '''assume''' Marty is dead and bail |
| 482 | ** He had just seen his girlfriend slaughtered by a homicidal family. When he hears Marty's scream, he could logically assume that the same thing happened to him. If Marty wasn't dead, then he'd be horrible mauled and close to dead, and they aren't going to get to a hospital soon. Especially not with the Buckners out there. At the moment, though, he can't afford to think about anything else except ensuring that his remaining friends survive the night. |
| 483 | ** The controllers could also have sent him a subliminal message to get him to leave Marty behind so there was definitely no chance of him going back to save him. And if Curt is outside still looking for Marty, he might also be able to help Dana and Holden escape the cabin before they find the Black Room or have that tense fight inside. So the controllers want the three survivors inside the cabin, so they can be easily split up and attacked in a more contained environment. |
| 484 | * Why was the security team shooting the glass window of the room Dana and Marty were in? If it is totally bulletproof, they should know it makes no sense. If not, they actually risked killing Virgin first... |
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