I HATE JOSS WHEDON / JOSS WHEDON SUCKS *

[agoutirex]

I haven't yet seen Cabin in the Woods. A lot of people have recommended it to me, many of them trusted sources with generally good taste in movies and who have no special love for Joe Whedon. And, you know, I don't want to offend any of you. I know you guys are cool and all, but I've got issues with Joe. Part of it is that I hate popular things

Comments

[mcity]

To be fair, it would be kinda difficult for them to advertise what the movie was really about without giving away the twi-

Oh, wait, they start revealing something's not right in the first few minutes of the film, and could've just shown the mysterious bad guys watching our heroes on their screens. They already showed the force-field and weird elevator. I mean, the central conceit of the film is supposedly that it ostensibly appears to be a standard horror movie, but that doesn't last ten minutes. There's no reason they couldn't've sold it as "look at these kids going into a cabin! But here are these creepy people watching them! And it's kinda funny!" This wasn't a failure so much of the viewers as a failure of the marketing. They could've sold it as something between Scream and Scary Movie.

That review was unbearably smug and pretentious, and this is coming from someone who liked the movie. Why? Because I already knew it wasn't a standard horror movie going in. Going "well, you're just to much of a plebian to understand it" is the verbal equivalent of a condescending headpat to a child. People don't get things that you get sometimes. You don't have to be a dick about it. Also, horror movies have regularly been trying to "shake up the genre" since Scream.

Also, I bowed out of Mullholland Drive after the theatre scene where everything collapses into a box in an empty room. I was just "nope. I don't get it. I'm out".

There are two types of depth. One is a swimming pool; you can hop in, have a swim, climb out later. Or you can climb in, decide you don't like it, and climb out. The other is more like being thrown into a river with concrete overshoes. You either survive or it drowns you.

That metaphor sounded much more profound in my head.

[mcity]

PS: I think the movie is still a horror movie. It's mostly about what's happening to the characters. The why isn't fully explained until the end. It's one of those "humans are the REAL monsters" things, though they're pretty funny monsters who somehow manage to be sympathetic while they're murdering folks.