I went to this film knowing very little about it other than that people had said that it was good and was not what you might expect. I think that was the best way to go see this film. If you haven't seen "The Cabin in the Woods" yet, please stop reading now and see it before you know too much about it.
"The Cabin in the Woods" is directed by Drew Goddard and written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard. It stars Kristen Connolly as Dana, the smart and sexually inexperienced girl, Chris Hemsworth as Curt, the athletic jock, Anna Hutchison as the slutty girl, Jules, Fran Kranz as the pot smoking Marty, and Jesse Williams as Holden, the guy that they are trying to set up Dana with. As the tag line for the film says, "Five friends go to a remote cabin in the woods. Bad things happen."
It was important for the film makers to set the tone for this film right from the start. The film takes the stereotypes of the horror, thriller genres and stands them on their heads. If they didn't set it up right the audience could easily be lost or be confused as to what film they were watching. The set up starts right as the main titles role. The credits appear with menacing music and bloody graphics until BAMM! Suddenly we are in a conversation between two middle aged engineer types talking gossip and work. At this point you are not sure what to think. That scene ends with a cheesy title card for the film. Still not sure what to think.
The film then settles into what appears to be a typical set up for a typical horror, thriller. We are introduced to each of the characters. To me each seemed almost too stereotypical at first, but I believe this was intentional. We have the strong, athletic guy, the hot girl, the smart girl, the pot smoking hippy and Scooby Doo. In fact they all get into an RV (the Mystery Machine) and head up to the cabin.
As they leave we get the first real hint as to what is going on. A man with an earpiece reports that the group has left and is on their way. He is reporting to the very engineer types, played brilliantly by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, that we met at the beginning of the film. They are in some sort of control room. They are joined by Amy Acker.
Our gang of five stop for gas on the way and meet a strange and creepy guy who warns them of the dangers ahead. Of course they ignore him and continue on their way. In a particularly funny scene, he is revealed to be on the payroll for the organization.
So, if you have seen the film you will know that what is really happening is that some organization, we really don't know exactly who, is in charge of making sacrifices to some ancient evil force to keep the world safe and that our five young people are to be among those sacrificed. Pretty cool. What was so well done was the way that this was revealed to us. They never gave away too much too early. So while you might be able to guess a little of what was really going on, you never got the full picture until the very end.
Some of the hints that were dropped were really cool. We would see images of other sacrifices around the world on the control room monitors. My favourite was the Japanese school room with a "Ring" like ghost attacking the school girls.
The film did a great job of playing out the typical slasher type thriller scenes in the cabin and mixing it with the humour of the scenes in the control room. There were some genuinely funny moments like the team betting on what creatures would attack the young folks in the cabin.
Most horror films employ a bit of humour mixed with the horror, but this film did it remarkably well.
One moment that really stood out for me was the first death. Jules and Curt go out into the woods. They are hot for each other. This is all being watched by the group in the control room. When it seems like the two are not going to get it on, the control room releases pheromones and adds some mood lighting to encourage them. They are a success when they are able to get boobies exposed.
We are taken from scenes of people joking, to sexual tension, to joking around , to sexual tension, then the killer zombies appear and cut of Jules head.
Normally in a thriller the kills are expected and anticipated, but by cutting between the sex, and the casual joking around of the observers, to the kill, and then back to observers joking, we are not sure how to feel. For me I found Jules death had more impact because it felt wrong to be laughing at it.
Once the surviving duo of Dana and Marty, figure out what is going on and enter the control centre, we are treated to almost every monster and nightmare you can imagine. The cameo appearance of Sigourney Weaver was a treat. When the tables are turned on the controllers it is very satisfying. However it is hard to imagine how our heroes will survive and in fact we are left believing that they don't.
I did find myself genuinely caring for the characters. They had been drawn as broad stereotypes (this is really because they were being chemically controlled by the organization to be such) but ended up being likable. I even felt for the guys in the control room when they met their demise, especially for Bradley Whitford's character who got taken out by a merman.
"The Cabin in the Woods" was all in all a really good film.
No comments:
Post a Comment