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MrAHR Ahr river from ಠ_ಠ Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
Ahr river
#201: Jul 8th 2012 at 11:09:07 AM

So, it says there was a Reaver (Firefly) as one of the monsters? Does anyone know when that was / where that was?

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Lawyerdude Citizen from my secret moon base Since: Jan, 2001
Citizen
#202: Jul 8th 2012 at 11:46:40 AM

I they were on screen briefly during the Mayhem sequence. Once it comes out on DVD it will be easier to spot the various nasties with a pause function. I know you can see the Angry Molesting Tree when the elevators first open.

edited 8th Jul '12 11:48:11 AM by Lawyerdude

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.
MrAHR Ahr river from ಠ_ಠ Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
Ahr river
#203: Jul 8th 2012 at 11:47:23 AM

Ok, Reavers are all humanish, and I for some reason could not pinpoint them.

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thatguythere47 Since: Jul, 2010
#204: Jul 8th 2012 at 1:00:44 PM

I missed reavers? Gorramit.

Does anyone know why this movie was delayed for (I think) three years? Was there copyright issues or something that needed to be resolved?

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?
RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#205: Jul 8th 2012 at 1:17:18 PM

it doesn't go far enough in over-the-top ridiculousness

Wow. Never thought I'd see that complaint leveled at The Cabin In The Woods. I mean ... wow.

P.S. [up] It was produced by MGM studios just as they were undergoing major financial difficulties, so they couldn't afford to release the movie and it sat on their shelves for a few years 'til Lionsgate bought it from them.

thatguythere47 Since: Jul, 2010
#206: Jul 8th 2012 at 4:31:47 PM

Damn. It's like the entire universe has conspired to make sure Joss Whedon never has a project go right. He probably had to sacrifice his ability to laugh to get the avengers made.

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?
Lawyerdude Citizen from my secret moon base Since: Jan, 2001
Citizen
#207: Jul 8th 2012 at 5:03:30 PM

If that's the case, then we honor his sacrifice.

On another note, I was thinking about the moral implications of the Operators. Their conversations touched a lot on the idea of Diffusion of Responsibility. Could any one person do what they do? Who knows, but by dividing up responsibility, each person can avoid feeling guilty about murdering innocent people, while at the same time celebrate their perceived success.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.
MrAHR Ahr river from ಠ_ಠ Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
Ahr river
#208: Jul 8th 2012 at 5:11:55 PM

Well, there was that black dude who felt guilty, although I LOVED how Amy Acker was in that movie, if simply because I have gotten sick of her sugary-sweet innocent archetype.

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Lawyerdude Citizen from my secret moon base Since: Jan, 2001
Citizen
#209: Jul 8th 2012 at 5:26:59 PM

Sugary sweet? She wasn't so much in Dollhouse, and Fred had the optimism and happiness slowly tortured out of her until she became the host for a Hellgod.

I think Amy Acker plays the sort of characters who should be innocent, but has horrible things happen to her. But that's Joss for you.

edited 8th Jul '12 5:27:27 PM by Lawyerdude

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.
MrAHR Ahr river from ಠ_ಠ Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
Ahr river
#210: Jul 8th 2012 at 5:29:04 PM

Never saw Dollhouse. Was referring to Fred and the character she played in Once Upon a Time.

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thatguythere47 Since: Jul, 2010
#211: Jul 8th 2012 at 6:02:17 PM

The Operators probably all end up in the fetal position on the floor repeating "I did what I had to do" over and over until they die. Either that or they exclusively hire sociopaths.

edited 8th Jul '12 6:02:41 PM by thatguythere47

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?
ngrey651 Since: Jan, 2001
#212: Jul 12th 2012 at 9:51:18 AM

There is one other problem that I have with the movie, and it's this: it, like the film Prometheus, thinks that it's actually so much smarter and "hipper" than it actually is. But unlike New Nightmare, or Scream, it's attempts to try and weave office-style humor and slapstick int0o the narrative kind of end up making too much of a clash. In trying to have a little something for everyone, it loses focus. The movie doesn't have a coherent enough plot, it's storyline isn't nearly as solid as something like "Scream", it isn't until the very last half hour that we get ANY idea as to what's really going on. At least Scream actually set up the whole "this is just like a horror movie, you gotta stay alive" thing earlier on in ITS run, and that was enough for the audience to realize that the characters had to be genre savvy to stay alive.

But this film doesn't do that. It just makes little...well, WINKS at the subject matter in an attempt to be "meta", but it doesn't go far enough. It just raises the specter, the same way Prometheus raised the "Religion and Science crisis" specter without really going into THAT. It never goes far enough, and it doesn't do it well in it's attempts to acknowledge the subject matter. I'm sure that Joss was trying to do some "banality of evil" thing with a multilayered story, but he didn't do it well enough. He tried, I give him credit for that, but he just didn't do it well. And this kind of thing is way, WAY too late.

I mean, really? Making commentary on how there's slutty characters in horror movies? Oh, gee! WHAT a brilliant analysis! Even joking about dumb jocks and dorky nerds was cliche in 1984. Friday the 13th anyone? Yes, Joss. Women DO show their breasts a lot! What a GENIUS bit of satire. Ah-ha. Ah-HA. HA. HAAAAA. :(

Lawyerdude Citizen from my secret moon base Since: Jan, 2001
Citizen
#213: Jul 12th 2012 at 11:29:43 AM

Well, if you didn't like it, you didn't like it. I don't really get what you're saying, though.

And BTW:

"Its" is a possessive. It's means "it is".

edited 12th Jul '12 11:30:12 AM by Lawyerdude

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.
LizardBite Shameless Self-Promoter from Two Galaxies Over Since: Jan, 2001
#214: Jul 12th 2012 at 7:47:28 PM

[up][up]We're going to have to agree to disagree. Because I have the exact opposite opinion. To me, Scream was the movie that was just a wink followed by playing everything straight. Cabin in the Woods was more about trying to create a scenario where the Standard Horror Format could actually exist. Never saw New Nightmare, so I can't say either way whether or not it succeeded in being "meta."

edited 12th Jul '12 7:48:15 PM by LizardBite

maxwellelvis Mad Scientist Wannabe from undisclosed location Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: In my bunk
Mad Scientist Wannabe
#215: Jul 12th 2012 at 7:55:03 PM

[up]It pretty much was dedicated to tearing down the wall between creator and created.

Apparently, Wes Craven trapped an ancient demon in the Nightmare movies, and it escapes in the form of Freddy because they stopped making Freddy movies. Everyone plays themselves, Heather Langenkamp has to "become" Nancy to face Freddy, while Craven writes a script to try and trap the demon once more.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great
ngrey651 Since: Jan, 2001
#216: Jul 14th 2012 at 6:55:27 AM

Yeah, I actually thought that was really clever of Wes. That's "meta", man.

Diabolo Since: Jul, 2011
#217: Jul 21st 2012 at 9:05:42 PM

[up]So, you dont have anything against the Twist of Cabin that was: "No audience, YOU ARE THE MONSTERS!! And then the audience was Azathoth" ?

The way that Joss refereed them as "the horror movies audience"

ngrey651 Since: Jan, 2001
#218: Jul 22nd 2012 at 1:05:38 PM

No, because he seems to be making this sweeping generalization that the average horror movie fan...y'know, LIKED Saw and Hostel. Whilst I, on the other hand, a fan of the genre and somebody who considers themselves mainstream, think that people like Eli Roth have no freakin' talent and should be thrown into a salt mine.

Diabolo Since: Jul, 2011
#219: Jul 22nd 2012 at 2:26:03 PM

[up]My issue with the movie is that Joss Whedom seems to think that the "twist" represent the horror fans but even that falls flat on its face, because the only way that would make sense is if the movie-going audience has ANY control at all over the production or ANYTHING at all on the artist visions.

There is a difference between WANTING and EXPECTING something in a horror movie to happen. We EXPECT that horror movies to have promiscuous teenagers that are annoying as fuck, to have the black dude die first, to have lots of gore for the sake of gore and etc, because people already lost faith on movies to be any good at all.

We are POWERLESS to stop people and producers from remaking/rebooting/re-imagining/reusing the same formula over and over for cheap cash. We aren't some kind of amorphous mass of flesh of GODLIKE power that dictates who is successful and who doesn't, we are more on the line of a wife that has an abusive husband that keeps going back under the delusion that he actually loves her and one day all will be better, as Mr. Plinket would say.

edited 22nd Jul '12 2:28:16 PM by Diabolo

ngrey651 Since: Jan, 2001
#220: Jul 22nd 2012 at 3:21:48 PM

We have some control. We can, y'know, point out the movies suck. We can get others not to see it. OR we can actually support them. If the money isn't there, then the movies usually aren't there. Then again, this makes me think of the average porn film. Two blondes gettin' down on each other is a real winner in the marketplace of ideas. But here's an interesting fact: those movies are on for a total of...are you ready for this? 12 minutes.

Movies like "torture movies" are porn. They appeal to the lowest and basest of instincts...but nobody's gonna wanna see that much of them once they're "spent", y'know? Plus they might end up feeling ashamed after.

Diabolo Since: Jul, 2011
#221: Jul 22nd 2012 at 4:12:47 PM

[up]If we can really point out that a movie sucks and cut the money they get by spreading the word, then by that logic, Transformers and Twilight would have tanked ASAP (and since we are in the Age of Fast Communication, that would have been quite fast indeed)

And even if people finally admit that they were foolish in liking those movies and actually are ashamed of it, it will already be too late and those movies already made more money for sequels, and the people (once again) will believe that the makers of such films will take their humble opinions into account witch we all know that is not the case.

Maybe there is some factor i am missing here. There HAS to be a case where the audience became such a powerful force on dictating what stays and what is removed from a work in the same way that Joss want us to believe (as you said, it CANT be the horror movie fans or else the twist is just plain silly)

I could say that the Mass Effect 3 Ending fiasco is sort off close to this, but its a videogame and it was more about the developers (not the marketing) lying to the fanbase. And lets not forget that Joss cant make a social comentary on something that was released yet.

edited 22nd Jul '12 4:23:40 PM by Diabolo

LizardBite Shameless Self-Promoter from Two Galaxies Over Since: Jan, 2001
#222: Jul 22nd 2012 at 6:05:44 PM

Remember that this film was shot three years ago, back when movies like Saw and Hostile were popular and iconic and dominated the horror market. This happened right after the Japanese remakes were popular (hence the J-Horror sacrifice), which in turn was after Slashers had a resurgence in popularity (and Slasher films operate on very similar principles to "torture porn" films). Also remember that they wouldn't have turned those movies into franchises if they didn't make money, so yes, there were people asking for movies like that. Enough people for Saw to get Lord-knows-how-many sequels.

Really, the fact that its distributor went under was the biggest blow against this movie, since it meant that it didn't see release until after its commentary had become irrelevant.

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#223: Jul 22nd 2012 at 6:08:52 PM

What audiences want definitely shapes what movie studios put out, it just doesn't always happen immediately and often comes with some misinterpretations of what the audiences want. But, generally speaking, if there aren't a whole lot of people who like a certain kind of movie, then movies of that kind will sell poorly and filmmakers will stop getting funding to make them.

At any rate, I didn't see the main target of this movie's satire as horror fans. Yeah, the Ancient Ones represent horror movie audiences, but they're almost completely off-screen and only elaborated on near the end. What it was really satirizing was filmmakers who get so wrapped up in catering to those audiences that they just rework the same, proven formula over-and-over, sacrificing their artistic integrity. Just replace "filmmakers" with "Control Room guys", "audiences" with "gods", and "artistic integrity" with "moral integrity".

Diabolo Since: Jul, 2011
#224: Jul 22nd 2012 at 9:47:02 PM

I love how you say: "often comes with some misinterpretations of what the audiences want" THAT is something that resonates well with the Eldritch Abomination representation of the movie because, as you know, these creatures are "beyond comprehension", so its easy to see how "the artist" would see "the audience" as something that they barely understand.

However, it is still hard to believe that in this day and age, the barrier between "the artist" and "the audience" is still bigger than the Berlin Wall. Its actually insulting, really, on how these people still have to play guesses on what the audience want. They cant so narrowminded into thinking that we, "the audience", doesn't know what we want.

"What it was really satirizing was filmmakers who get so wrapped up in catering to those audiences"

But there is no real harm in NOT meeting whatever criteria the audience want. We can't SNAP the fingers and Unperson the planet nor even the artist if they fuck up, especially if that kind of need was already meet before with other works of art. This kind of twist would work if we understand what happens in both sides, how does "the artist" see "the audience" and vice-versa. Why would HIS world (real or mental) be destroyed if this is not done?

Lawyerdude Citizen from my secret moon base Since: Jan, 2001
Citizen
#225: Jul 22nd 2012 at 9:55:40 PM

In a way, "the audience" does have power of life and death over "the artist". If the film sucks, if nobody buys tickets to go see it, then the studio loses money. And for movie studios, money is all that matters. Money is life, in a very literal sense. Studios have banked their entire well-being on a single blockbuster. Some succeed, some fail and kill the studio, like what happened with Orion.

There is no such thing as a "filmmaker". Movie making is a group enterprise.

edited 22nd Jul '12 9:56:37 PM by Lawyerdude

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

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