As an entry for the What's the best horror movie you've ever seen contest I couldn't decide easy on which movie to pick.
I love the Horror genre and because of that I've seen many, many horror movies and is hard to see one that really surprises me or scares me, I'm the kind of people that with my friends play to predict what will happen, who would the masked killer be, how the curse would end, how the demon started possessing... anyway, watching many horror movies for years it's easy to know the formula: young people messing with things they can't understand, being killed one by one either by a human killer or a supernatural force and by the end one survives and roll credits start when the survivor is looking at the distance at sunrise after a hellish night.
Well, I liked Cabin in the Woods because it mocks that formula, it shows some sort of backstage to every horror movie.
It was written by Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon, released in 2012 starring Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford.
This movie doesn't exactly have good guys and bad guys, every one is just an "innocent" doing what they think it's the best choice.
It starts with two men dressed as office workers discuss about a competition between them and other countries, it's not clear where they're at or what they do but they're in a huge facility with scientists and guards that look like military.
then it goes like any other movie, a group of friends is getting ready to spend a weekend on an isolated place because somebody's acquaintance lets them use that place... I know many movies come to mind with that description like Wrong Turn, The Descent, Animal, Evil Dead... and the list goes on.
We meet the characters, Dana who's in an inappropriate relationship with one of her teachers, her best friend Jules, a smart student dating Curt who's also a good student and decent guy, Marty the relaxed guy who is always in his own world smoking and Jesse, Curt's jock friend who his friends want to pair with Dana so she can forget about her relationship with her teacher... this information about each character as we meet them seems unimportant but it's a small detail it's worth remember to understand more what happens in the cabin.
They all go into an RV to go to Curt's cousin's cabin... yeah in the woods...
To get there they stop at an apparently abandoned gas station where they meet a creepy man who gives unclear directions and acts as if he hides something, your every horror movie creep who may or may not know what happens in the remote place the college students are about to visit. To get to their destination they have to go trough a tunnel that crosses a mountain, what they don't see is that an invisible wall is protecting all the place, a bird is flying and crashes with that wall making it clear that the only way in and out is through that tunnel.
Once in the cabin, they are having fun, swimming in the lake, having some drinks, playing truth or dare, and unknown to any of them, they're being watched by the office men in their facilities and also they're controlling the environment, all the men have to do is guide them down the basement so with a switch they make the basement trap door open, this scares the group of friends but as a predictable reason to that, Curt explains it must had been the wind that opened it, Marty asks how does that make any sense at all. As part of their game, Dana is dared to go into the basement.
The basement is filled with different artifacts, like a music box, an old journal, a proyector, masks, several objects that look harmless but considering the genre we the audience know something bad will happen with one of those old things.
Dana gets scared with a big picture of a girl, her scream makes all her friends go down with her and they all start to take a look at all the things in there, each one of them curious with one item each while the office men are watching making bets among all their coworkers about which creature will kill the students.
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Marty doesn't want to be there messing with those items, he suggests to go back upstairs but no one listens, Marty hears a voice whispering them to read when Dana picks up a journal and opens it, Marty wonders where that voice comes from and why the others don't seem to notice it, the voice whispers to read out loud, Dana does and reads an entry which is in latin, this starts their nightmare, the journal belonged to a girl who was murdered along with all of her family, the Buckners, and they all arise as zombies.
I know, it is still as predictable as any other movie but the reason for that are the men in their office.
The group of friends go back upstairs and continue their night as if nothing happened, but their personalities start to subtle change, Marty notices it but decides to ignore it for now. Curt starts acting as a dumb horny jock, Jules as his naive dumb blonde girlfriend, Jesse suddenly understands latin and is intelectual, and Jules acts innocent as if she were unsure of what to do when Jesse kisses her. They're starting to embrace the roles they're given by the men.
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The Buckner zombie family starts killing them one by one starting with Jules when she and Curt "decide" to go outside for a walk in the middle of the night in the dark woods, we see the men releasing pheromones and changing the wood's temperature so the couple would start making out, this pheromones are sent by steam, which would explain why in every movie like this there's always mist in the woods and couples always want to have sex in places like that.
Curt barely escapes and runs back to the cabin to warn the others, there they first decide to stick together no matter what, but suddenly with more chemicals sent by the men they decide to split up to cover more ground.
Marty is attacked next, the other three managed to get into the RV and drive away back to the tunnel to leave that place but the men block it with an explotion.
Curt takes his dirt bike from the back of the RV and decides to jump the cliff that separates them from freedom, promising to bring help, so we see Chris Hemsworth heroically taking speed on his bike, making the jump aaaand... crashing with the invisible wall falling to his death.
Meanwhile, in the facility, they're all watching what happens in other countries, the competition the men were talking about at first was about which country would please the Ancient Ones with their sacrifices... that's all this is about, sacrifice people to please Ancient Gods. Most countries have failed and now it's a competition between Japan and USA.
When they show the other countries we see the traditional Japanese horror ghost, a giant King Kong like ape, zombies... it's like watching many known movies.
When every victim dies, the men pull a lever and figures start to be filled with blood, each time they do this the earth trembles and they say The Ancient Ones are being pleased but want more.
Back with the remaining survivors, only Jesse and Dana are alive, they start to make a plan, they want to find another way out but before they can do anything Jesse is killed, Dana is alone now and in the facility everyone starts celebrating, they see Japan failed in their mission when the ghost is defeated there and here they say they win because it's optional if the last victim dies or lives as long as is the only one left.
But, their celebration is interrupted by a call from their superior, Dana's fate wouldn't matter but Marty is still alive! they have to kill him first to please the Ancient Ones.
And this is where it all takes a different direction. Marty saves Dana from dying and they both escape through an elevator Marty found before, this elevator takes them underground and they see lots and lots of monsters, ghosts, werewolves, giant tarantulas, masked killers, aliens... Personally I paused this part because I wanted to see each reference to all the movies, as a video game fan I was pleased to see Left4Dead special infected there, you can identify several classic movies like Alien, It, Poltergeist, Hellraiser, The Shinning, Silent Hill, Night of the Living Dead... too many movie references to name them all.
After Marty and Dana get out of the elevator they reach the facility, down there is chaos because to succeed they still have to kill them both, so the two survivors runaway and hide in a control room, there they see a button that releases all the trapped creatures, when they press it all hell breaks lose. Again it's great to see many references there in one great scene.
Marty and Dana keep running away reaching the ceremonial place where they see the figures representing them and they meet the facility director, played by Sigourney Weaver.
She explains them that the Ancient Ones want their sacrifices, they ask for "The jock", "The whore", "The scholar", "The Fool", and "The virgin", Dana wonders why she's called the virgin since she isn't one, the Director explains they work with what they have, that's why each one were changing personalities to fill those roles.
The Director tells them that if the Ancient Ones aren't pleased the world would end, the solution is to kill Marty. Dana considers it but she can't kill her friend, even if by saving him means the world ends.
They kill the Director and can do nothing more than wait for their end, the whole place starts to fall down, the Ancient Ones weren't pleased so they're free, the movie ends with a colosal hand coming out destroying the facility, the cabin and as far as we know, the whole world.
If you think of it, the Ancient Ones are us... the audience, we know the formula for this movies but still we enjoy watching how each sacrifice will be, different countries offer us their options, their own formulas only to please us, when a movie doesn't like us we react... not as a giant destroying hand but we complain.
I liked it because of its way to explain every horror genre cliché we're very familiar with, like thinking splitting up is wise, or why would someone drop their weapon when being chased by monsters or why it seems that it's always the same kind of characters, it gives an answer to where all the monsters came from in every movie if there was all calm before... it has an evil unicorn, what more would you want? haha.
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And that was all for now, thank you all for reading, hope you enjoyed this and see you around.
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When I saw this movie for the first time I thought it was just a generic slasher with a bunch of young characters waiting to be murdered. I never expected the massive twist at the end, much less is the macabre ending which is honestly one of the scariest ones I have ever seen, even though the movie isn't completely serious that ending is shocking, to say the least. I loved it.
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I saw this movie a long time ago and I found it very funny and totally crazy. I saw it without many expectations and it was a pleasant surprise.
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