The Cabin in the Woods

Too late, I saw the trailer on TV and know the entire story.

I haven't watched the trailer specifically to go in fresh. My Wife and I went to see it a cpl weeks ago and they cancelled the showing. First time it's ever happened to me.

So I now have to wait till the BD and have to stay away from trailers/spoliers another 6 months.

No spoiler talk, but minus a rowdy crowd the movie won't be nearly as effective watching it at home. I thought parts of it were fun mainly because the audience was into it. That said I found the ending hugely disappointing.

A great concept movie that fell apart under the weight of its own "cleverness," sadly.

Went in blind and was pleasantly suprised.

Can't wait for it on Blu.

It's a different one, that's all I'll say.

As I brought up in another forum, you probably won't ever see a bank of elevators in the same way again.

To its credit, at least it tried.

Absolutely agree. It started out great and then, like most all others, collapsed into the ridiculous. Neat concept that never meted out the goods.

Well, there were some nice hooters though!

I really enjoyed this movie, except for the final five minutes which I thought was lamer than lame. And yes, "I get it," but to me, it was still cringe-worthy. I'll probably still pick this up on blu ray though.

My only beef in the world of critics is with a reviewer who said that it was the best deconstructionist horror film since "Scream." I have to adamantly disagree and suggest that the best deconstruction horror film I've ever seen is "Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon." (2006, available on blu ray). Highly recommended if you are a true horror buff.

I really enjoyed the movie, but would only recommend it to certain types (such as those who like stuff like Buffy and Supernatural). It's as much a comedy as anything. I did really dig that they went all the way with the concept at the end and that the characters' decision at the end was pretty questionable!

Thanks for the recommendation - sounds interesting. Another movie that comes to mind, while not a "deconstruction", but definitely "meta" is New Nightmare. I don't remember it as a classic or anything, but there were some fun ideas in it.

Agreed. And one of the only films of the series where Freddy was actually scary.

FYI
I watched this last night. It was a rental from Netflix and the only audio option was DD 5.1, no lossless. This is becoming more and more prevalent.

Well, that's Lionsgate for you.

Those guys, along with other studios, think the way to sell movies on disc is to remove features from other options instead of add value to the purchase option.

Here, I'll explain to you guys why studios remove the DTS-MA tracks and SHOULD remove them from rental discs (the few ruin it for everyone, as always):

Verbatim BD25 Blank Media - $1.10 each (if bought in a 25 BD spindle and the prices are going down every month)
Verbatim BD50 Blank Media - $4.60 each (if bought in a 50 BD spindle and the prices are going down every month)
AnyDVDHD - $60 (after converting from Euro and subtracting 20% discount)
LG Blu-ray burner - $60
ImgBurn - FREE

Does THAT make sense and is it clear enough???? Some of you just simply lack the basic understanding of common sense.

That's not even close to the reason.

They do it for two reasons:

1) to slim down the content to fit on a smaller disc

or

2) to encourage those that really want better audio to pay full freight for it instead of renting.

You're theory doesn't make sense since it makes it easier for someone to make a 1-1 copy of the disc for a $1 Netflix rental. Further, if someone wanted a copy with the lossless tracks, they could just buy it, rip it, then E-bay the original and only be out $5 or so.

Besides, all the cool kiddies just download a copy off the torrent sites and save themselves the trouble of ripping it themselves. They get it faster that way, too, since most of those rips are up before the public even gets the discs.

The strategery is working. I'm buying more discs than ever.

To be fair... If someone is intending to pirate movies, what makes you think they'd spend the $60 for AnyDVDHD? My guess is they pirate that too!

I think the other poster clarified, though, how someone would just rip the regular Blu anyway... so crippling the Netflix really doesn't do anything to curb piracy. Heck, it seems some folk are getting masters directly from the replicator since they have torrents available before the movie even makes the stores!

All things being equal, though... I quite like buying my movies so there really hasn't been any temptation to consider the piracy angle. I have satellite TV to watch things I'm not sure if I want to own yet... and then I wait for sales to buy stuff unless I know I want it on week 1.

On-topic... I did pick up Cabin this week... and watched it last night. What was weird, though... as I watched that final scene... I would swear to you that I've seen it before, but that isn't possible is it? It wasn't a part of a trailer shown on the talk show circuit or anything was it? I had not seen the movie until last night... but that part seemed eerily familiar to me.

Those .mkv torrents are not the same quality as the original disc. When was the last time you actually saw a Blu-ray .iso for download? And even if there would be one on occasion, it may be up to 40+ gigabytes. Piracy is the number one reason, in my opinion of course.

Yea, I thought the same thing when I saw it in the theater. I'm pretty sure there was something to that effect in some other film dealing with mythology or the like. Just can't quite figure out what it could be.

This is one of those instances where the suits don't know their a$$es from a hole in the ground.

The big reason for studios releasing videos for rentals is they are very much aware many folks simply will not buy without seeing a movie first (and not everyone can or will go to a movie theater).
The rental industry is perfectly set up to provide these "previews."
However, sending out crippled rental products to potential purchasers as enticement to buy is dumb-dumb marketing at its very finest.
This is like expecting to sell a cadillac after providing a chevy as a rental car.

You obviously don't know where to look. All you seek is out there.

...and I agree with you - the reason you give is just your opinion.

Stripping audio tracks and special features is all part of the lump sum plan to discourage renting along with delaying releases for rental.

The studios would like you to believe that everything they do is in this vast fight against piracy. They want people to believe that every pirated copy is a lost sale so they can go to congress and try to get onerous legislation that won't do the things that would help actually reduce piracy. The things that would actually reduce it are:

1) Plug up their own leaks and clean their own houses before wanting to go into someone else's. Many of the sources of pirated materials are from the studio employees themselves, or contractors hired to work on productions. Vet your employees better and institute better internal security, then we'll talk.
2) Stop sending your masters to China for duplication. Seriously. The studios wonder why there are so many pirated discs on the world market, yet send their product out to be duplicated by the world epicenter of piracy and trademark violation. Awesome.
3) Stop with the cascading release schedule. Release your product same day world wide so no one is left behind. When people have to wait longer, it makes them angry enough to say....aaaaargggg!
4) Price the product appropriately. Blu-rays are far too expensive. $25 - $30 for a new release is rediculous. Further, Charging nearly the price of the DVD for a friggin' digital download is crminal.
5) Make better movies. The studios don't seem to understand this. If they make crap, people don't want to own it. Really good movies sell well. Junk doesn't.
6) Stop with the fake 3D. If you don't spend the money to shoot it in 3D, it's not right to charge more for it. The extra admission price should reflect the investment put into it. Running it through a conversion program while you head off to lunch isn't an investment.
7) If it's not viable to release it on disc, make a deal with Netflix and Amazon to stream it. Having it sit in the vault doesn't generate money and increases piracy. However, the studios fail to understand that some money is better than no money. If they can't sell it at full price, they won't sell it at all. There are literally thousands of movies and TV shows sitting in vaults that people cannot legally view anywhere. Lump sum deals with streaming services would allow the honest folks to avoid being pirates to watch stuff they want to see.

If the studios want people to buy instead of or in addition to renting, they need to give them a reason to. Things like movie cash are one way to do it. Offering a rebate if you buy it after renting it is another. Super deluxe editions with exclusive content on the retail versions (as opposed to stripping normal content off the rental to penalize renters) is yet another.

Make it worth it for people to buy in, but don't treat them like suckers who are connected by one hand to a cash machine.

When you automatically assume your customers are priates, then nickel and dime them in hopes of a 2% bump in your quarterly stock price, you tick off the people that would otherwise have handed you their money. The problem is, the studios believe that making their content more expensive and harder to obtain legally is the way to stop piracy. The can't see the forest for the trees.


At any rate, back on topic:


My issue with Cabin in the Woods is that it didn't seem to know what it wants to be. Some of the humor was great, but it wasn't scary enough to be a scary movie. They would have been better off doing a sendup of horror movies where the premise is that horror movies are actually shot like reality shows - only people die for real. The whole premise of this one was plain silly and ruined the ending.

Shaun of the Dead showed you could mix comedy with horror and have a movie that was both funny and bloody in one package.
Edited by NetworkTV - 9/23/12 at 5:26am

^ Excellent post! I agree 100%!

I thought it was fantastic from beginning to end. Don't get the hate of the ending, unless you all wanted the normal boiler-plate horror movie. I was glad that it was something different and wasn't just the same old formula.