Sunday, September 23, 2012

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Director: Drew Goddard. Cast: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Richard Jenkins. 95 min. Rated R. Horror/Thriller.

Anything I tell about the story would spoil the fun. Let's just say this is a combination of Evil Dead's horror/comedy mixture, and The Truman Show's deep look into how a governmental authority controls us by feeding our imagination with macabre entities (and as an homage, there's a character called Truman). The way the movie intelligently uses some famous movie cliches (the deformed gas station attendant who shows our heroes the wrong direction) to step up the story, is just brilliant. And I loved the choice of a famous actress cameo at the end. Screenwriter Joss Whedon has scored again.

Mo says:

6 comments:

  1. I don't think I've ever seen so much blood in a movie before (it was great!)
    Also, in terms of homages, I think I got a glimpse of the Shining twins near the end?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't recall seeing the "Shining" twins, but since we're on the subject of CITW's bloody elevator foyer and Kubrick's masterpiece, you may get a kick out of this very memorable trailer (and "The Overlook Hotel" website):

    http://www.theoverlookhotel.com/post/18834634535/the-original-theatrical-trailer-for-the-shining

    ReplyDelete
  3. I distinctly remember that trailer because it was so unsettling when I saw it in the theater as a child.

    Btw, I was able to find the Shining twins! Here's the screen capture:

    http://db.tt/YWp5LUgT

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's awesome! I posted the image on Facebook.

    ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. when I watched it I told myself this is the exact taste of you ! all monsters in movie industry were all together with those pleasant moments of cinematic artistic work!

    :-)

    Spoiler !

    Did you notice ,again behind all those blood and bleeding always is the shadow of religion?...should it be root of any extra violence,massacre and huge suffering ? it should not be but in the real it is !...now ancient god is a bloodthirsty ritual needs blood to get sleep and let mankind to survive !
    It didn't remind me Truman show but now I guess you're right. I found some familiar theme with Prometheus or Hunger game
    Agree when in final scene the main director entered I said OMG!, look who is coming.! I love her.

    ReplyDelete
  6. To be honest, I didn't get the impression that the movie was saying religion was behind all this - rather I thought it was saying an "ideology" was behind it all, whether it being a divine ideology (religion) or otherwise. Maybe I'm not recalling this correctly, but I believe the movie was portraying the powerful entity as some sort of "alien", rather than a God.

    And I too cheered when I saw the actress that showed up at the end! I could not have imagined a better choice!

    ReplyDelete