Cabin In The Woods

OH MY GOD THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!

It definitely has one of the most balls-out insane endings I've ever seen.

Upon seeing it, every horror movie now takes place in that universe, in my head.

I didn't like it. It felt like the movie was telling me I suck for liking horror movies.

You Bastard!? Chill out, there's nothing wrong with enjoying vicarious bloodshed and murder. Don't feel bad for your darker instincts, feel glad that they have this easy catharsis available and that public executions aren't fun-fair town festival family entertainment anymore, and that pinatas aren't actual animals spilling their guts like they used to be.

So how come Joss Whedon sells me a product where it IS all real? And says that it's my fault as a horror fan for liking that like some kind of sicko?

I don't think it was criticizing horror fans per se; I think it was criticizing a certain sub-group of horror fans.

Traditionally, the appeal of horror movies is that they scare you. Watching them, you get to feel what it's like to be afraid for your life, but without actually being in danger. That approach to horror movies is based on viewers empathizing with the protagonists, on feeling fear for the characters.

However, there are a lot of horror movie fans who don't empathize with the films' characters. Instead of feeling afraid when the protagonists are in danger, they actually root for them to be brutally murdered. For them, it's not about being afraid; it's about watching idiots get tortured and killed as punishment for their "transgressions". I think it's that lack of empathy the movie's attacking.

No he doesn't, it's fiction, not snuff, and if he did, you should just take it with good humour, because there's absolutely zero viciousness behind that barb: this isn't Funny Games, this is a movie about horror movies and fun. If you feel at all guilty or upset about it, it means you aren't comfortable with enjoying fictional slaughter. And that's okay, I suppose, to each his own. I love it.

Both and make good points.

edited 11th Aug '14 3:53:11 PM by TheHandle

It's more a critique at the modern slasher films. Where it's just watching people get brutally killed for no reason other than that's what we've been seeing for the last 20 years.

I didn't see it as criticizing horror fans at all; I saw it as making fun of the ridiculous conventions of the genre, highlighting all the logical failures that have to be manufactured in order to bring such a film into existence.

The eldritch horrors were, of course, meant to represent horror fans, but they weren't the villains of the plot; they were just sort of there, an inherent element of the setting. The monsters destroy the world, not because unhappy fans will murder people, but because if the films are not entertaining, they will not exist. In storytelling, there can only be a story if there are people to listen to it. Without an audience, fiction dies, and the world comes to an abrupt end.

edited 11th Aug '14 5:04:17 PM by TobiasDrake

In my interpretation, it's not lampooning audiences for liking horror films, but for liking repetitive and cliché horror films; or, alternatively, lampooning writers and directors and producers for creating those kinds of films. Hence the need for the five characters to be chemically manipulated to fit specific types (Jock, Bimbo, Nerd, Clown, and Final Girl, to translate the movie's terms into modern parlance).

It's not saying horror films should exist, but that they shouldn't be so generic.

If I recall, Sucker Punch is the movie that calls you an asshole for watching it.

x3

That's a point I agree with the the Spoony One on. A lot of horror movies, he called out Final Destination in particular, are more of comedies than horror. You don't like the characters, you don't give a damn about them, you're watching to see them get gruesomely splattered.

edited 11th Aug '14 7:54:05 PM by Rotpar

Sucker Punch kicked ass and wasn't exactly a horror movie.

It lured adrenaline-junkie horndog young men with the promise of hot girls in schoolgirl outfits fighting with katanas against giant robots, and turned out to be a drama about the cruelties of the mental healthcare system of the early 20th century, where the action scenes were totally superfluous dream sequences. The brothel scenes basically equated those who exploited the girls for their own gains with the young men who planned to use Sucker Punch for spank material.

I dunno, if you liked Sin City you should enjoy Sucker Punch for the exact same reasons: gorgeous, hypersexualized women (most of them whores) with huge trauma and mental problems, over-the-top insanity, violence, abuse, despair, and Grimdark, all stylized enough that it comes off as entertainingly beautiful and truculent and sad rather than, you know, horrifying and disgusting and repulsive.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the exact same formula, except with Anime tropes instead of Film Noir ones.

None of the girls were whores in Sucker Punch, they were asylum patients.

Never mind.

edited 12th Aug '14 8:30:30 AM by TheHandle

Ok

edited 12th Aug '14 8:30:53 AM by GethKnight

That they weren't actual whores is irrelevant. It's the theme, the whole cultural baggage around prostitution, that makes it such a magnificent source of mixed feelings. In the realm of fiction, it's like a dude being an assassin; it's both cool and lame, attractive and repulsive, empowering and humiliating, pitiful and scary. In Sin City they're "actual" whores, in Sucker Punch they're virtual whores in one level and merely dress like such in the one above, but the archetype is there.

Of course, real-life prostitution, and real-life slut-shaming, are something else entirely, and bear surprisingly little relation to one another.

There's few things more satisfying than a Heartbroken Badass.

edited 12th Aug '14 8:40:45 AM by TheHandle

So, the reason they wore the fanservice outfits during fantasy sequences that were edited together into a trailer to entice and somewhat mislead an audience is the problem you have?

I don't have a problem. I'm happy, and my conscience is clean. Since I'm perfectly comfortable with myself enjoying sadistic stories where non-existent people suffer tragically for my catharsis, You Bastard! messages get a shrug from me, or I even take them as a compliment. "Yes, I do enjoy hurting people that don't exist, as opposed to real folks. Now give me that Chainsaw Good! AHAHAHAHA!"

edited 12th Aug '14 8:45:37 AM by TheHandle

I only saw it cause my stepbrothers and stepdad dragged us to it

I didn't have a problem with Sucker Punch either, but that's mostly because I wasn't enticed by blatant fanservice and more by the premise and beautiful visuals.

Trying not to derail the topic, but what I heard about Sucker Punch was that the whole film was a trap. If you wanted to see it you were as disgusting and repulsive as the fat sweaty perverts in the film. That wanting to see fanservice Action Girls from the trailers was the same as being the disgusting guy getting hallucination lap dances in some fantasy/dream world or two.

Cabin isn't doing that. The viewer being an Eldritch Abomination is part of the meta-joke. It's not deliberate judgement intent of the director to point a finger at the viewer and say "you are a bloodthirsty psychopath for watching horror films", where as 'Sucker Punch'' is supposedly doing that: "you are a filthy pervert who objectifies women if you watch these movies".

That only really applies if you're the people actively desiring the fanservice and watching it for the fanservice. And only really if you notice the cues that suggest it as its perfectly possible to watch the movie and not pick up on that.