I know it seems a bit cheap to open a Horror movie comedy blog with such a recent title, but the fact is that I only recently discovered the “MemoPad” function on my horribly out of date Blackberry..  I watch a lot of movies, but find drinking and holding a laptop while also concentrating on whatever madness is playing out on the talking box in my living room to be rather difficult..  So I’m a bit late to the game on this one, but after discovering that I can take snarky notes while holding a cooler or cider or full bottle of Jack Daniels between my feet AND watch some god awful cinema magic – I realized I was set, and that my dreams (er?) of writing a hilarious horror movie blog would probably come true.

Okay soo..  Cabin in the Woods!

Let me preface this in saying that I actually don’t entirely hate Joss Whedon.  Judge me all you like on this front, but I spent my pre-teen years watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (who didn’t?) and was then promptly disappointed when NO ONE in my high school was rolling off the witty one liners like they do in Buffy..  Truth be told the majority of my high school classmates were barely able to put down the hash pipe for long enough to form a coherent sentence or had bigger things in life to worry about rather than being witty (like if Mom was gonna spend the pay check on Baby Duck again).  I won’t lie here, I went to school in the trash can out back. Fact is – the house I grew up in?  Yeah it’s a run down shack now.  Depressing.

Anyways.  Back to Joss Whedon – did you know he was responsible for Alien 4?  Alien Resurrection as it’s more commonly known?  That would explain why Warrick Brown from CSI (I refuse to learn the actor’s name because I don’t care.  He will always be a stone fox, and one time I met him at Universal Studios.  True story), Ron Perlman, Winona Ryder and that bad guy from the Crow all spout off hilarious one liners and generally ruin a terrific Sci-Fi / Horror series by turning it into some kind of after school special where the hideous Xenomorphs and that whole “In space no one can hear you scream” thing is turned into a big in-joke that nobody in the audience was in on.  I mean really Winona Ryder as an emo cyborg?  Lt. Ellen Ripley as some weird ass Alien-whisperer with that stupid leather outfit and painted nails FOR NO REASON?!  I mean come on – where did she get nailpolish in the black vaccuum of space?  I bet it was from the same place the Event Horizon goes..  I can tell you that much.

I’m getting off track here.  This should really just go to show you how amazing this review is going to be, because I’m already so worked up and I’ve really only scratched the surface..

Does anyone remember that show “Dollhouse”?

Oh you don’t?  Neither does anyone else that doesn’t have Netflix..  The show features Eliza Dushku (formerly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer – she played the role of the skanky and damaged slayer named Faith).  The whole Dollhouse series is supposed to be a kind of comment on technological advances (and how said advances will be the downfall of humanity), and it has a pretty good premise – in the future, men and women can sign themselves into a “Dollhouse” where they exist as “dolls” or slaves for hire who are imprinted with specific memories and skillsets that actually turn them into the people to whom those memories and skills belonged..  These dolls then are hired out to millionaires and other weirdoes to perform the humpity bumpity or just to give said weirdoes a bit of an ego boost..  Upon completion of their “encounter” or “engagement” the dolls are returned back to the confines of the Dollhouse and their memories are wiped clean, allowing them to be used again and again.  If you want to know more, and have Netflix and some time – the whole 2 seasons are available for watch.  Felicia Day is even in one of the episodes.
Also I swear to Satan that this is going somewhere – this whole Dollhouse thing ties in with Cabin in the Woods on so many levels…  Mostly being that half of the goddamn cast rose from the ashes of Dollhouse to ride again in Cabin in the Woods.

Alrighty so here we go then –

Cabin in the Woods opens innocuously enough with a sexy girl in her underwear prancing around..  I like where this is going.  Cut to a flash of “CABIN IN THE WOODS” dun dun dun..  and at this point I am unsure if the movie is making a comment about all of those really campy 80s horror flicks that opened in similar ways or is just insulting my intelligence.  Anyways.

Said sexy girl and her friends are taking a trip to a Cabin (in the woods!) for a little weekend partying, and here’s a quote for ya = “We’ve got a keg, we’ve got a lake, no more learning!”  Solid conclusions if I do say so myself.

Please also note Chris Hemsworth who played Thor is in this piece of trash..  going from playing a sexy Norse god of Thunder to being the token ‘hot rebel’ guy in a bad horror movie is definetly not the upward career move.  What happened Hemsworth?  Did you owe someone a favor?

Anyways, said group of crazy kids including the opening girl, Thor, a blonde babe and the token stoner (played by Franz Kanz also formerly of Dollhouse fame), and some other dude who isn’t important head off to their weekend party location.

Let me also say that when I write the phrase “token stoner”, I mean that Kanz’s character rolls onscreen smoking from a huge bong that somehow transforms into a travel coffee mug (minus the Transformers/dubstep sound effects).

Said bong plays a major role (ugh, that hurt me to write) later on in the movie, but I will leave that for when it actually matters.  Let me say this – I love Franz Kanz.  He’s adorable.  He saved Dollhouse from being horribly boring, if only because he got consistently great one liners, and to see him playing a stoner plucked at my marijuana addled heart strings (and brain stem), and from this point on you can understand that he also saved this movie (but only barely) at least in my eyes.

I have to say though – where can I get a bong like this?  It would combine two things I adore – coffee on the run and dope smoking, though truth be told don’t those things kind of cancel each other out?  It’s like drinking and doing cocaine, it doesn’t make any sense to me.  Anyways, clearly I’m not cool or hip enough to understand something as complex as modern drug culture so I’m gonna leave that one alone lest some uppity hippies tell me to “chill out, man”.

So the fun loving group of kids head off in an RV to a weekend of camping at cabin (this doesn’t make sense..  why not just camp in the RV?).  But if he RV hadn’t been there you wouldn’t have been able to see Franz Kanz rolling joints in a moving vehicle (something I lack the skill set for, so props to him).

I wasn’t able to find a picture on google of said action, so you’re gonna have to imagine it or watch the movie.  Sorry guys.  At one point during this sequence, someone makes a quip about “going off the grid” which is the lamest foreshadowing ever..  because oooooh, scary, these unwitting sexy teens are soon going to be put into a Truman Show-esque reality TV computer simulation which is co-or-dined off by A GRID!!!!  AHAHAHAHAHAHA, do you see what they did there?  LAME!

Cut away from the sexy teens (who are actually folks in their twenties, possibly thirties..  I didn’t look it up), to the evil corporation which is behind the whole thing in a rather Hostel like fashion of sending these teens to fight for their lives while the rich take bets on who will be the first to bite it (is this social commentary?).

The evil corporation also has another cast member from Dollhouse in it.  This lady:

I will say that she lacks the facial cuts and seeming bat shit crazy bad assery that made her an interesting character as “Whiskey/Dr. Saunders” in the Dollhouse series.

This evil corporation also has a token black man who seems to be just standing around looking pissed off, which is really a job I think I would like to have – I would be great at it, and I wouldn’t even have to try.  I wonder where I can sign up..

Anyways, cut back to the sexy teens who have now stopped at a creepy gas station (a la the Hills Have Eyes except with less rape).  The creepy gas station owner (?) played by this guy:

This creepy dude proceeds to be rude to the kids, and generally act as a creeper.  At some point he phones the evil corporation to tell them that “the lambs are come to the killing floor” which makes me wonder two things..  Is this a line from a Wovenhand song?  Also we find out later that this dude’s name is Mordecai.  Thats just fact.

Also, why does his mouth look funny?  The creepy gas station guy I mean..  Is it because it is filled with this:

I think we all know the answer is a resounding yes, because he’s obviously a crazy religious redneck, and who really is Copenhagen marketed to?

As a sideline – is anyone else just bored to death with the whole crazy for Jesus thing?  I don’t mean crazy as in standing on a street corner with signs, I mean crazy as in the whole I will murder you religious nonsense that horror movies have eaten up and regurgitated FOREVER.  I think we all understand the political, religious and social commentary that is inherent in making the whole – religious person/true sinner dichotomy, but I’m just so bored with the killer redneck hillbilly thing.  It’s been done to death and you can’t see it right now but I’m punching myself in the dick.

Anyways.. back to the sexy teens and the creepy guy leering over them..  they get gas or something and then resume their trip to their friends cabin – with a cut away shot of a CG falcon soaring majestically through the air only to hit an invisible grid and die..  Remember what I said about the previous comment made about “Going off the grid” being the worst foreshadowing ever?  Yeah it still stands, and I am still punching myself in the dick.

The kids arrive at the cabin, which looks like a run down shit hole, and also like someone obviously was murdered there..  And the go inside only to find some creepy ass painting, which I would definetly hang up in a dentist’s office or in the front office of an elementary school.

Think of all the conversations you could start..  or hypothetically end.  Like what if someone was in your office and they were all in your face about something, you could just look at the painting, and then back at them and then slowly back at the painting..  They’d be totally creeped out and would likely think you were going to kill them and then they wouldn’t fuck with you.  Seems like a solid investment to me, but I don’t know anything about art.
I don’t “understand” Jackson Pollock, but I really did like those pictures of the tomato soup cans by Andy Warhol.

As the painting is taken down a two way mirror is revealed into which the beta male of this flick gazes at the virginal hot girl, which could lead to some interesting sexy times.  FYI, if you’re ever in doubt about whether a mirror is two-way or not, just put your finger up to it, and if your finger “touches” the reflection then it’s a two-way mirror!  See regular mirrors are actually a piece of glass with a silver reflective backing stuck on to it so if you touch a regular mirror you will see a gap between your finger and the reflection.  I learned this from reading a book about spies one time and I’ve always wanted to impart this knowledge to someone.  Truth be told I always check hotel mirrors, but so far I haven’t found any two-way mirrors.

At this point in the movie I’m two drinks and a full joint in, and become confused as to whether the lead actress was in What Women Want starring Mel Gibson – does anyone remember that movie where he gets all hammered and waxes his legs while listening to Frank Sinatra?  Turns out that the actress is NOT in Cabin in the Woods but she does have a small role in the Avengers which is another Joss Whedon masterpiece, so I maintain that I was half right.

The sexy teens are now engaging in some giggle fits and going swimming, yelling about partying, which leads me to question if Andrew W.K. was consulted for parts of the dialogue.  He probably wasn’t, I just love Andrew W.K.

Back to the evil corporation who has now resumed betting on who will win, and what horrible ends will be chosen by the unwitting teens who are in fact masters of their own destinies at this cabin.  The teens will later go into a basement/crawl space area under the floorboards and are greeted with a strange assortment of goods which act as foreshadowing to the movie’s end.  I won’t go into detail right now, because at this point my hetero life mate is screaming at the TV “IS THIS THE EVIL DEAD MEETS THE TRUMAN SHOW?!”

The evil corporation seems to be having some kind of party and there’s horrible rap music in the background which is quite obviously made by white people for white people.  I’m pretty gone at this point, but I decide to see this through to the end because I’ve come so far..

The sexy teens find themselves inside for some more partying (they’re going pretty hard, seeing as how they had such a hard afternoon flailing around in bikinis being rebels)..  and for some reason the sexy blonde is doing a sexy little dance slash striptease thing?  First of all if I was out camping and one of my idiot friends decided to act as the entertainment by doing a sexy little dance, first I’d throw up and then I’d probably leave.  I love my friends but not in the way that I’d ever want to see any of them do a sexy dance.  Please understand that one of my friends has a habit of drinking old lady gin and wearing argyle sweaters..  he’s an awesome dude, super fun to party with but sorry Josh I do not ever want to see you in any state of undress and I hope you feel the same about me.  The fact of the matter is that if we’re at a party together and you start acting like a stripper you better bring out the cocaine post haste and start cutting up hero rails or I’m gone and that’s that.

The sexy teens decide to take their partying to the next level and start playing Truth or Dare, because most regular people in their twenties frequently engage in this socially acceptable activity…  Please understand at this point I was screaming “OH COME ON!!!”

For some reason someone dares the sexy blonde to make out with the snarling visage of a taxidermied wolf:

I own a wolf skin rug (his name is Sean Bean), and I have never been compelled to have any sort of sexy time with it.  Though it does look pretty bad ass hanging on the wall – gives my place that sort of Skyrim feel.  And no I didn’t kill it myself..  I bought it at a garage sale, so bite it you filthy hippies.

During said possible instance of bestiality a wind comes up from under the floorboards and blows open a trap door leading to a dark and spooky room beneath the cabin.  I’m not a weather man here but I really doubt that winds just comes up from the ground in gusts strong enough to blow open a trap door..  I guess there was that one time that a big gust of wind blew up Marilyn Monroes skirt, so I will just leave it there..

Let me also add that the sexy teens are drinking keg beer which is filthy.  There’s a fun scene where the virginal hot girl tells the stoner – “I love you, but you’re really high”.  Story of my life.

Franz Kanz then says he is going to “read a book with lots of pictures”.  Alright then.  Meanwhile Thor and the sexy blonde have gone off to the woods to make the humpity bumpity.

Unwittingly at this point the teenagers have also triggered their demise which is to be at the hands of a torture redneck zombie family (did I already say how overdone this is?), and the zombies quickly approach.

As Thor is clitoris deep in the blonde girls snatch, she gets stabbed through the hand by the zombie torture family, who proceed to rend her apart before Thor’s eyes.  He does what any good strong man would do – he runs like a bitch.

Back at the Cabin Franz Kanz is getting pretty high and reading Little Nemo – I said previously that he is the only saving grace of this movie and I meant it.

Thor runs back in and advises the teens to lock the cabin, and due to no one listening to him, there ends up being the blonde’s severed head thrown at them, which is sort of a cool effect I guess.  The kids lock down the cabin and try to formulate a staying alive contigency plan in which the famous last words “we all should just stick together” are uttered.

At this point they also realize that they are on television or surveillance or whatever and Franz Kanz says “My parents are going to think I’m such a burn out”.  Story of my life.  Some other stuff happens and it ends in the stoner fending off a zombie with his coffee cup bong, and I think at this point I was yelling “YEAH BITCH TAKE A HIT..  OF DEATH”.  Still punching myself in the dick over here.

Let me also say that at this point the movie is wearing so thin that I think we started taking shots just to amuse ourselves.  It turns out that evil corporation who has set these teens up for doom is actually trying to prevent the end of the world by using these teens as a sacrifice to appease the “Old Ones” – I knew those zombie assholes were working for Cthulhu I just knew it.  The company is apparently attempting to implement similar scenarios around the world and failing miserably – cut to the requisite nod to J-Horror flicks, and a little the Ring/the Grudge looking ghost is haunting some Japanese school children or something.  One of the characters also makes a statement about Shinto being a language – I think you meant Japanese there buddy, because otherwise you might as well say Christian is the language of white folks.  Is that racist?  That seems racist to me somehow.

Fuck there’s so much going on in this movie – killer zombie hillbillies, the Matrix, the Truman Show, half the goddamn cast of Dollhouse, singing Japanese children – fuck it’s like a bad acid trip or what I could only imagine bath salts might be like.  I think I’m too high to handle this right now.

The sexy teens attempt a getaway in their shitty RV, but are foiled miserably when the tunnel they attempt to go through is blown up.  Thor then makes the awesome executive decision that he’s going to jump a motorbike over a cliff and find help somehow?  I don’t even know.  Being that he is Thor and all he should just grab the Mjollnir and start pwning those zombie noobs, but there has to be this stupid ass scene of him attempting to jump this cliff gap thing in which he himself gets pwned much like that CG hawk falcon at the start of the movie.

Thats the end of Thor.  Sorry kids.  I even tried to find a picture of him crashing into that horrible grid like thing, but I couldn’t.

Back at the evil corporation some asshole starts waxing poetic about the innate goodness of the virginal hot girl, and then interrupts himself to scream “Woooo… Tequila!!!”  Which tells me that I should marry this man, because his attention span is similar to mine.  At the corporate headquarters where everyone is prematurely ejaculating their good times, a creepy red phone rings, and it turns out that their plan has been slightly foiled because someone didn’t die in the correct order – oh right, there is an order to which the sexy teens have to die or else the magic ritual or whatever doesn’t work.

Who didn’t die?  This guy:

Thats right.  Franz Kanz comes back from seeming death to beat a zombie to death with his coffee cup Transformer bong.  See Marijuana does save lives.  Ugh..  I swear I won’t make that joke again.

The two dig themselves into a grave to escape the coming zombie horde.  They then are transported underneath the cabin to discover glassed in rooms with various horrors confined within.  It’s like Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival up in this heezy

.Anyways confined in glass very similar to the movie 13 Ghosts are various horrors – a werewolf, some Pinhead looking motherfucker, a little girl ballerina with some kind of piranha face..  i’m not kidding:

And then we learn that the creepy room that the kids went into was filled with keys to possible scenarios with which they could have made their own doom – ballerina Silent Hill monster included.  At this point I started smelling burnt toast because I must have been having rage induced strokes, because at the goddamn end of this piece of shit they start showing you quite literally WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN..  all these crazy and stupid options with which these retarded assholes could have made their end, and they go with the zombie torture redneck family?  Good lord, they even show a unicorn..  a FUCKING UNICORN.  I mean obviously it would have been a really mean one, but still it would have made for at least a more interesting premise..  what with a white horse chasing around Thor and his skank through the woods and her vagina could have totally been impaled on the horn faster than you could say “phallic symbology”.

We also find out at this point (or maybe we did before..  I don’t remember) that the whole area on which the cabin is sitting has been rigged to release drugs to alter the mood and behaviour of the sexy teens, and that the stoner kid is immune because he’s been high as giraffe pussy (not my bit, but thanks Joe Rogan) on marijuana.  Do we need more arguments as to why pot is great?  You can win Olympic gold, cure cancer and also not get eaten by zombies.  Seems like a hot ticket.   Hey wait does that mean that weed makes you immune to bath salts then?  Hey maybe thats what happened to that dude who ate that other guys face down in Miami or whatever – he was just chillin’ doin some bath salts and smoked some weed and somehow the two counteracted each other and his brain achieved critical mass or some shit.

So the army comes and the monsters in the glass boxes get unleashed and it’s a total blood bath, and shit is just going all crazy haywire pretty much.  It’s like Silent Hill but lamer somehow.  Then the evil bad guy who was all waxing poetic and screaming about tequila dies ironically by a merman which is what he had bet on in the betting scenario..  oh irony you are a cruel mistress and also hipsters love you.

Aaaand Sigourney Weaver comes out and launches straight into a monologue…  like quite literally steps on screen and begins a monologue about why the corporation is sacrificing sexy teens, and how they’re trying to keep the old evil ones at bay..  Then a motherfucking werewolf (Jacob from Twilight?) comes out and starts chewing on the virgin and then Franz Kanz and Sigourney Weaver start kicking the living shit out of each other.

Let me tell you, I love Sigourney Weaver.  She’s fucking hot and also hard as fuck, and doesn’t weep like a little bitch too much in the Alien movies.  Didn’t I tell you my ranting from the start of this blog about Alien 4 would eventually make sense?  It’s pretty much Joss Whedon just phoned everyone he knew and was like, “Who wants to make a shitty movie?” and these are the folks that returned his calls.  See I don’t know if Sigourney Weaver is getting a lot of work in Hollywood these days, and she’s probably pretty pissed about not being in Prometheus somehow..  Cuz I mean, did anyone else hate the female lead in Prometheus?  She’s such a whiney little shit, and brings disgrace to that franchise’s history of bad mother fuckin female characters.  Like:

Anyways..  somehow the one armed zombie comes in and kills the shit out of Sigourney Weaver (not nearly as badass as throwing yourself into a volcano:

But whatever.  I love you as Ripley, Sigourney Weaver!

The stoner and the virgin then decide that rather then have the virgin kill the stoner, they’re going to be selfish and let the whole world come to an end and let the evil Cthulhu monsters take over.  This seems like a very black metal thing to do..  Varg Vikernes would be so proud.

I know that in a backwards ass way this final scene is supposed to be some sort of social commentary on how humans are actually the monsters but I’m leaving that rant for future blogs.

The two idiots then spark up a joint and get high while the world ends which seems like a logical thing to do..  which is also why I’ve booked off December 20, 2012 and intend to day drink and welcome the apocalypse with open arms.  Stupid Mayan Calendar.

Anyways, that’s the end.  Cut to credits.

In summary let me say that this movie was total bullshit.  It has such a good premise and could have gone so many interesting places that haven’t already been done to death.. and rather than chart new territory it falls back into the boring and mundane, which is a classic bad horror flick move.  Rather than take a risk we will just do what everyone else and their fucking grandma has done before us, and open ourselves to ridicule by complete asshats such as myself.

I could say more but I really feel I have ranted enough.

So I leave you with this: