Cabin in the Woods: Bumps In the Night

Cabin in the Woods

Directed By: Drew Goddard

Written By: Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon

Starring: Fran Kranz, Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Brian White, and Amy Acker

Director of Photography: Peter Deming, Editor: Lisa Lassek, Production Designer: Martin Whist, Original Music: David Julyan

           

I’m going to spoil everything in this movie. Most of it, which people have made a big deal about, really shouldn’t be considered “spoilers.” I read a couple of the reviews that called this film a mind-blowing masterpiece, and then refused to tell you anything about it, which kind of seems like a pointless act of film criticism. Apparently, many of the critics who don’t like this film have spoiled it (and of course these are the critics who are “wrong,” though people like Rex Reed aren’t exactly helping). I find this all quite amusing, because this is what separates film reviews from film criticism. I try and do both (albeit very poorly), because I have the feeling many of the people who read this stuff anyways are those who have seen the films already. Anyways, on with the show.

            The title of Cabin in the Woods is the first sign that the latest work from the universe of all things fanboy Joss Whedon is very aware of the story it’s telling. Five teenagers—the jock, the sex bomb, the nerd, the stoner, and the virgin—head up to, well, a cabin in the middle of nowhere, with a plan of enjoying all that comes without parental or societal supervision. Of course, the forest is a place where transgression leads to death by way of the supernatural, and in this one it is “Redneck Pain-Worshiping Zombies” (“if only it could be Merman, just once” a character explains—more on that later). Needless to say, Whedon, along with director and co-writer Drew Goddard, have set out to make a deconstruction of the horror genre, not too far from the Scream franchise.

            Ah yes, the latest movie about movies! Deconstruction is essentially a genre on itself these days, and it seems you can’t make a normal movie without someone believing it is actually about the making of cinema (see: Inception, a lot of film noir, all musicals, etc.). But Cabin in the Woods is specifically about the way we watch and enjoy horror cinema. Its premise—not only about these kids, but also those who control their destiny—is certainly clever, and at times quite ingenious. But Whedon and Goddard perhaps try and stretch their metaphor, a bit too much, trying to cram as much universe building and extra explanations as possible. Cabin is a ton of fun when it’s playing with the horror clichés we know, but it’s also a nightmare when it tries to explain those.

NYFF Review: We Are What We Are

We Are What We Are

Directed by Jorge Michel Grau

Mexico

            The New York Film Festival often offers films of…a certain type of prestige. Slow films, quiet films, films with subtle characters, or of a certain political ideology, and what not. Thus, with that being said, Jorge Michel Grau’s We Are What We Are is a refreshing diversion, a comically irrelevant horror film that may have some higher allegorical purpose, but in all honesty, is just damn good fun time (The film won Best Picture at the genre-oriented Fantastic Fest in Austin).

            So what is the frightening element of Mr. Grau’s hypnotic film? It’s hard to tell at first. We see an old man, walking around a shopping mall, almost like a zombie. He coughs up black vomit, and collapses dead, and a team quickly and efficiently removes him and the mess with a quick pace as not to disturb anyone else in the mall. We then transfer back to the man’s family, a poor one made up of a mother, a daughter, and two competitive sons. They are in trouble they tell us. They need to perform the ritual before time runs out, which we can tell by the 100 ticking clocks scattered around their dilapidated home. And when a pair of detectives see the father’s dead body at the morgue, they learn a finger was in his stomach.

            We Are What We Are follows cannibals, but not savage cannibals, but it is really a family tragedy story about the turmoil a family goes through without a patriarch. More than horror, this is a cruel family drama in which each member competes for the power void left in the wake of the father’s death. And Mr. Grau, with a wink to the camera, might shoot it in realist in harsh manner, but at least his score is right out of Hitchcock. The film’s gore is certainly cheesy and got a laugh out of me.

            The film is certainly nowhere near perfect—a side plot following those corrupt detectives is worth more than a few groans—but the sheer trashiness and absurdity of We Are What We Are is easy to have fun with, in a film that is certainly indebted to films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Family comes first for the subjects of We Are What We Are, though more than a little blood gets spilled along the way.