Cabin in the Woods review/notes
Jan. 24th, 2013 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
estiroseHorror movies are not my thing, but I have a soft spot for genre deconstructions. Spoilers for the movie, as well as the Fatal Frame games.
"Cabin In The Woods" came up at Yuletide, and I was intrigued, though not intrigued enough to rent the movie before now. Which is too bad, because I enjoyed the vast majority of the movie. There is gore (this is an American horror movie, after all) and about two minutes of nudity (a woman takes off her shirt).
The idea is basically this: Every year, in places all over the world, a ritual is performed to appease ancient gods. Each location has their own way of doing the ritual according to their own traditions. The Japanese group usually completes the ritual successfully, the other countries have less successful track records. Only one ritual needs to be successful, so as long as one country's group succeeds, humanity can live another year.
In the film, the story is split between the American group and the five college kids that they're using as sacrifices. We see something of the Japanese ritual, and brief images of some of the other groups, but it's all through the lens of the American group. The whole organization seems to be set up like a business that puts on events - in this case, very specialized events once a year. They have the whole thing down - they profile the youngsters, drug them, make sure they can't get out, and basically follow American horror movie cliches.
(I'll mention the Japanese ritual here briefly. It seems to involve a ghost girl terrorizing a bunch of nine year olds in a classroom. The ghost girl is apparently intended to be an Onryou, the same kind of ghost that shows up in the Fatal Frame games as the bosses, and I apparently know enough about Japanese horror to figure that out. The ritual fails over there, thanks to some really good thinking by the nine year olds.)
So, these five college kids, drugged to lower their decision-making capacities, head off to spend the weekend at a remote cabin. They have to fit a certain set of characterizations (whore, athlete, scholar, fool, virgin) in order for the ritual to work on the American end. The group running the sacrifice kind of shuffles each person into their supposed role under horror/slasher trope norms. The victims, the kids, have to do their (unknowing) part by selecting something in the basement of the supposedly old cabin. Depending on what they do, the ritual group brings up the corresponding monster to kill them. In this case, they pick the Zombie Redneck Torture Family, which gets activated and goes about its business.
Of course, the first girl gets killed, and everything goes to plan - more or less. There are some complications, for example the group sensibly staying together for a bit, followed by the failure to block the exit by cave-in, which nearly lets the victims escape. It finally gets to the part where the last two survivors figure out what's going on - or at least one of them does - and they head down into the world of the ritual group below them.
The ritual group is interesting. As I said before, it's run very much like a very large event, for the benefit of a bunch of gods. They take bets on what kind of monsters are released and have their favorites. Every group has a purpose, whether it's taking care of the horrors, making sure the victims can't escape, or cleaning up after, and they don't seem at all bothered by the fact that they are responsible for killing 4-5 young people every year. It's not hard to start cheering when everything goes haywire on them and they're attacked by their own released monsters.
I really enjoyed the monsters, even if I didn't recognize all the references that were apparently in there. There was at least one ghost, some goblins, serial killers in masks and other things, zombies, witches, giant snakes, you name it, they had it. My favorites were probably the ballerina/Sugar Plum Fairy, the Lord of Hell, and the Twins, though I'll also mention that I liked the American Slow-walking Creepy Girl that we see briefly.
Probably the most interesting thing to me was how the ritual group echoes so many groups in the Fatal Frame series. There are some differences - Kirie, Sae and Yae, and Reika all knew what they were getting into, to one extent or another, while the victims in this don't until they start putting things together. But still, the ritual group essentially are like Lord Himuro and priests in Fatal Frame I, Kurosawa Ryokan and his priests in II, and the Kuze Shrine folks in III. Of course, the ritual group in this movie are kind of punch-clock cultists, because this is a job, not a religion to most of them, with maybe the exception of Mordecai.
What fascinates me the most about the whole idea behind the ritual is that it's kind of like the ones in Fatal Frame, where the ritual has to be done or evil is unleashed. In other words, kill someone or someones every so often, or be responsible for possibly ruining the world. Let a maiden be torn apart, or let someone strangle their identical twin once a decade, just to save the world. And that's how these people see it. They're doing what has to be done to save everything. It makes me think of what will happen now that Minakami's not stuck on repeat after the canon end of II; it's now under water, but will the evil seep out again in ten years despite being waterlogged? (Same for I, though that whole process is probably being stopped by Kirie blocking the way.)
Cabin in the Woods is a bit more catastrophic than the Fatal Frame games. The Malice in I kept itself in and around Himuro, while the equivalent in II just trapped Minakami Village. The Manor of Sleep in III is more far-reaching due to its curse, but it still only affects a comparatively small amount of people, not the whole world. On the other hand, if all the rituals fail in the movie, the Elder Gods go and destroy the world. Which is exactly what happens; the two survivors choose to let the ritual fail and let the world be destroyed.
"Cabin In The Woods" came up at Yuletide, and I was intrigued, though not intrigued enough to rent the movie before now. Which is too bad, because I enjoyed the vast majority of the movie. There is gore (this is an American horror movie, after all) and about two minutes of nudity (a woman takes off her shirt).
The idea is basically this: Every year, in places all over the world, a ritual is performed to appease ancient gods. Each location has their own way of doing the ritual according to their own traditions. The Japanese group usually completes the ritual successfully, the other countries have less successful track records. Only one ritual needs to be successful, so as long as one country's group succeeds, humanity can live another year.
In the film, the story is split between the American group and the five college kids that they're using as sacrifices. We see something of the Japanese ritual, and brief images of some of the other groups, but it's all through the lens of the American group. The whole organization seems to be set up like a business that puts on events - in this case, very specialized events once a year. They have the whole thing down - they profile the youngsters, drug them, make sure they can't get out, and basically follow American horror movie cliches.
(I'll mention the Japanese ritual here briefly. It seems to involve a ghost girl terrorizing a bunch of nine year olds in a classroom. The ghost girl is apparently intended to be an Onryou, the same kind of ghost that shows up in the Fatal Frame games as the bosses, and I apparently know enough about Japanese horror to figure that out. The ritual fails over there, thanks to some really good thinking by the nine year olds.)
So, these five college kids, drugged to lower their decision-making capacities, head off to spend the weekend at a remote cabin. They have to fit a certain set of characterizations (whore, athlete, scholar, fool, virgin) in order for the ritual to work on the American end. The group running the sacrifice kind of shuffles each person into their supposed role under horror/slasher trope norms. The victims, the kids, have to do their (unknowing) part by selecting something in the basement of the supposedly old cabin. Depending on what they do, the ritual group brings up the corresponding monster to kill them. In this case, they pick the Zombie Redneck Torture Family, which gets activated and goes about its business.
Of course, the first girl gets killed, and everything goes to plan - more or less. There are some complications, for example the group sensibly staying together for a bit, followed by the failure to block the exit by cave-in, which nearly lets the victims escape. It finally gets to the part where the last two survivors figure out what's going on - or at least one of them does - and they head down into the world of the ritual group below them.
The ritual group is interesting. As I said before, it's run very much like a very large event, for the benefit of a bunch of gods. They take bets on what kind of monsters are released and have their favorites. Every group has a purpose, whether it's taking care of the horrors, making sure the victims can't escape, or cleaning up after, and they don't seem at all bothered by the fact that they are responsible for killing 4-5 young people every year. It's not hard to start cheering when everything goes haywire on them and they're attacked by their own released monsters.
I really enjoyed the monsters, even if I didn't recognize all the references that were apparently in there. There was at least one ghost, some goblins, serial killers in masks and other things, zombies, witches, giant snakes, you name it, they had it. My favorites were probably the ballerina/Sugar Plum Fairy, the Lord of Hell, and the Twins, though I'll also mention that I liked the American Slow-walking Creepy Girl that we see briefly.
Probably the most interesting thing to me was how the ritual group echoes so many groups in the Fatal Frame series. There are some differences - Kirie, Sae and Yae, and Reika all knew what they were getting into, to one extent or another, while the victims in this don't until they start putting things together. But still, the ritual group essentially are like Lord Himuro and priests in Fatal Frame I, Kurosawa Ryokan and his priests in II, and the Kuze Shrine folks in III. Of course, the ritual group in this movie are kind of punch-clock cultists, because this is a job, not a religion to most of them, with maybe the exception of Mordecai.
What fascinates me the most about the whole idea behind the ritual is that it's kind of like the ones in Fatal Frame, where the ritual has to be done or evil is unleashed. In other words, kill someone or someones every so often, or be responsible for possibly ruining the world. Let a maiden be torn apart, or let someone strangle their identical twin once a decade, just to save the world. And that's how these people see it. They're doing what has to be done to save everything. It makes me think of what will happen now that Minakami's not stuck on repeat after the canon end of II; it's now under water, but will the evil seep out again in ten years despite being waterlogged? (Same for I, though that whole process is probably being stopped by Kirie blocking the way.)
Cabin in the Woods is a bit more catastrophic than the Fatal Frame games. The Malice in I kept itself in and around Himuro, while the equivalent in II just trapped Minakami Village. The Manor of Sleep in III is more far-reaching due to its curse, but it still only affects a comparatively small amount of people, not the whole world. On the other hand, if all the rituals fail in the movie, the Elder Gods go and destroy the world. Which is exactly what happens; the two survivors choose to let the ritual fail and let the world be destroyed.
