| The Cabin in the Woods | |
|---|---|
_theatrical_poster.jpg) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Drew Goddard |
| Written by | Joss Whedon Drew Goddard |
| Produced by | Joss Whedon |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Peter Deming |
| Edited by | Lisa Lassek |
| Music by | David Julyan |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Lionsgate |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 95 minutes[1] |
| Countries |
|
| Language | English |
| Budget | $30 million[2] |
| Box office | $69.9 million[3] |
The Cabin in the Woods is a 2011science fiction[4]comedy horror film directed byDrew Goddard in hisdirectorial debut, produced byJoss Whedon, and written by Whedon and Goddard.[5] It starsKristen Connolly,Chris Hemsworth,Anna Hutchison,Fran Kranz,Jesse Williams,Richard Jenkins, andBradley Whitford. The plot follows a group of college students who retreat to a remote cabin in the woods where they fall victim to a variety of monsters while technicians manipulate events from an underground facility for a global purpose.
Goddard and Whedon, who previously worked together onBuffy the Vampire Slayer andAngel, wrote the screenplay in three days,[6]: 13 describing it as an attempt to "revitalize" theslasher film genre and as a critical satire ontorture porn. The special effects, monster costumes, special makeup, and prosthetic makeup for the film were done by AFX Studio.[7] Filming took place inVancouver, British Columbia, from March to May 2009 on an estimated budget of $30 million.
The film was originally slated for release on October 23, 2009, which was later delayed to February 5, 2010,[8] byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) andUnited Artists (UA), but was indefinitely shelved due to financial difficulties. In 2011,Lionsgate Films picked up the distribution rights. The film premiered in December 2011 at theButt-Numb-A-Thon film festival inAustin, Texas and was released in the United States on April 13, 2012, to critical and commercial success. It grossed $66.5 million worldwide, and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its screenplay, tone, and performances.
In an underground laboratory, engineers Gary Sitterson and Steve Hadley discuss preparations for a mysterious ritual. TheStockholm operation recently failed, leaving only their facility and one in Japan to undertake the process, with the latter holding a perfect record.
American college students Dana Polk, Jules Louden, Curt Vaughan, Holden McCrea, and Marty Mikalski are spending their weekend at Curt's cousin's cabin in the woods. From the lab, Sitterson and Hadley remotely control the cabin and manipulate the students' behavior with mind-altering drugs. They lure the group into the cabin's cellar which contains an assortment of bizarre objects. Dana finds the diary of Patience Buckner, a cabin resident abused by her sadistic family. Dana recitesincantations from the diary and inadvertently awakens the whole Buckner family as zombies.
Hadley releasespheromones to induce Curt and Jules to have sex outside. The Buckners attack them, killing Jules while Curt flees. Meanwhile, Marty discovers concealed surveillance equipment in his room before being stabbed and dragged off by a zombie. The lab workers learn that the site in Japan has also failed, meaning that the American site is "humanity's last hope". Curt, Holden, and Dana attempt to escape in theirRV, but Sitterson triggers a tunnel collapse to block them. Curt attempts to jump a ravine on his motorcycle to seek help on the other side, but crashes into aforce field and falls to his death. Dana then realizes that their experience is staged and controlled. Holden is killed by a zombie while driving the RV, causing it to crash into the lake. Dana manages to escape and swim to the lake's dock, but a zombie corners and brutally attacks her.
The lab employees celebrate the success of the rite, believing that Dana is the last survivor. However, Marty comes to her rescue, having previously survived the ambush. He takes her to a hidden elevator, and they descend into the lab and discover an extensive collection of monsters in cages. Dana correlates them with the objects in the cellar and realizes that the objects determine which monsters are released. Cornered by security personnel, the pair release all the monsters, which wreak havoc and slaughter the staff; Hadley is killed by amerman and Dana accidentally stabs Sitterson.
Dana and Marty discover an ancient temple, where the facility's director confronts them. She explains that annual human sacrifice rituals are held worldwide to appease the Ancient Ones, a group of cruel subterranean deities. Each region has its ritual, and the American ritual involves the sacrifice of fivearchetypes: the whore (Jules), the athlete (Curt), the scholar (Holden), the fool (Marty), and the virgin (Dana). The order is arbitrary as long as the whore dies first and the virgindies last or survives.
The director urges Dana to kill Marty and complete the ritual, but as Dana considers it, a werewolf suddenly mauls her. Marty shoots the werewolf and scares it off, but the director attacks him. Patience Buckner arrives and kills the director before Marty kicks them into the pit below. Deciding that humanity is not worth saving, Dana and Marty apologize to each other and share ajoint as the temple floor collapses. A giant hand bursts out of the ground, destroying the facility and the cabin in the process,bringing about the end of the world.
Principal photography began on March 9, 2009, inVancouver,[9] and concluded in May 2009.Joss Whedon co-wrote the script withCloverfield screenwriterDrew Goddard, who also directed the film, marking his directorial debut. Goddard previously worked with Whedon onBuffy the Vampire Slayer andAngel as a writer.
Whedon described the film as an attempt to revitalize the horror genre. He called it a "loving hate letter" to the genre, continuing:[10]
... it's a serious critique of what we love and what we don't about horror movies. I love being scared. I love that mixture of thrill, of horror, that objectification/identification thing of wanting definitely for the people to be all right but at the same time hoping they'll go somewhere dark and face something awful. The things that I don't like are kids acting like idiots, the devolution of the horror movie into torture porn and into a long series of sadistic comeuppances. Drew and I both felt that the pendulum had swung a little too far in that direction.
Concerning the sheer number of creatures to be designed and made for the film, AFX Studio'sDavid LeRoy Anderson estimated that "close to a thousand" people were turned into one of around 60 different monster types.[6]: 152 The task necessitated renting a much larger facility to use as a workspace, as a crew of around 60 people were recruited. The producers told them to commence work on December 15, 2008, ahead of the official January 1, 2009, start date. They only completed the work by the March 9, 2009, production date because, as Anderson stated "We had nearly seventy people at peak, but in effect we had a hundred and forty people, because everybody had at least two jobs...it was crazy, but people had an incredible time...none of us are ever going to forget it, and we're never all going to be in the same room again."[6]: 153
The underground complex, elevators, and the control room were all sets, but for several wide shots, theBritish Columbia Institute of Technology's Aerospace building was used. Production designer Martin Whist referred toStanley Kubrick and commented: "It's very high-tech industrial, and it's a brand new building, never been shot in before...I wanted [the elevators] to be without any controls...to almost feel like a glamorized freight elevator...The lobby I wanted to look slightly utilitarian, contemporary and institutional...sharp and almost characterless."[6]: 134–137
A tie-in of the film with the video gameLeft 4 Dead 2 had been planned, with the game seeingdownloadable content based on the movie's settings. However, due to MGM's financial problems, the game content was cancelled, butValve allowed the studio to use monsters fromLeft 4 Dead 2 to populate the monster cells at the end of the film.[11]
The Cabin in the Woods was slated forwide release on February 5, 2010 (before that, it was slated for release on October 23, 2009),[12][13][14] and then delayed until January 14, 2011, so the film could be converted to 3D.[15][16] However, on June 17, 2010, MGM announced that the film would be delayed indefinitely due to ongoing financial difficulties at the studio.[17][18]
On March 16, 2011, theLos Angeles Times reported the following: "New (MGM) chief executivesGary Barber andRoger Birnbaum are seeking to sell bothRed Dawn and the horror filmThe Cabin in the Woods, the last two pictures produced under a previous regime, as they try to reshape the 87-year-old company."[19] A distribution sale toLionsgate was announced on April 28, 2011,[20] with some industry news outlets reporting plans for a Halloween 2011 release.[21] On July 20, 2011, Lionsgate announced that they had acquired the distribution rights to the film and set a release date of April 13, 2012.[22] Goddard described the deal as "a dream," stating "there's no question that Lionsgate is the right home forCabin...you look at all the films that inspiredCabin – most of them were released by Lionsgate in the first place!"[6]: 40 In an interview withCreative Screenwriting, Goddard focused on the advantages of the delayed release, saying, "Lionsgate came along and they were the best possible home for that movie. Had the bankruptcy not happened, we wouldn't have been in the right fit with the right people. Yes, it took two years longer than we wish it would've taken, but Lionsgate didn't make us change a frame and believed in what we were trying to do. If I had complained too much when MGM went bankrupt, we could have hurt ourselves. We just held firm that we believed in the movie and that we would find the right home and time, and it did. It's hard, but you have to be very patient in Hollywood."[23]
A surprise early screening of the film was held at theButt-Numb-A-Thon in December 2011, attracting highly positive reactions.[24][25][26] The film later screened on March 9, 2012, at theSouth by Southwest film festival, also in Austin.[27]
The Cabin in the Woods was released onDVD andBlu-ray in North America on September 18, 2012.[28] Both the DVD and Blu-ray feature an audio commentary by Goddard and Whedon, several featurettes, a documentary about the making of the film, and a Q&A session at the 2012WonderCon convention.[29]
The Cabin in the Woods grossed $42.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $24.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $66.5 million, against a production budget of $30 million.[3]
The film opened in North America on April 13, 2012, opening with $5.5 million and went on to gross $14.7 million in its opening weekend at 2,811 theaters, finishing third at the box office.[30][31]The Cabin in the Woods closed in theaters on July 12, 2012, with $42.0 million. In total earnings, its highest-grossing countries after North America were the United Kingdom ($8.5 million), France ($2.4 million), and Russia ($2.3 million).[32]
The review aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 92%, based on 294 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Cabin in the Woods is an astonishing meta-feat, capable of being funny, strange, and scary—frequently all at the same time."[33] OnMetacritic, the film achieved an average score of 72 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[34] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.[35]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars, saying that "The Cabin in the Woods has been constructed almost as a puzzle for horror fans to solve. Which conventions are being toyed with? Which authors and films are being referred to? Is the film itself an act of criticism?"[36]Peter Travers ofRolling Stone gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it "fiendishly funny". Travers praised Kristen Connolly and Fran Kranz for their performances, and wrote, "By turning splatter formula on its empty head,Cabin shows you can unleash a fire-breathing horror film without leaving your brain or your heart on the killing floor."[37]
Cinema Blend's Editor in Chief, Katey Rich, gave the film 4.5 out of 5 stars and wrote:
"Even when the story sticks firmly in standard horror territory, this particular group of attractive kids is especially fun to spend time with... You'll have to see it, and youreally have to see it if you love horror, hate horror, or have any interest in seeing how the genre can function as a playground for something completely fresh. Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford are involved, though in roles that are more fun to discover as you go along-- they do get a lot of the best jokes, though, and their scenes show a lot of Goddard's skill in handling the rhythm of a scene."[38]
Jenkins and Whitford were also admired byThe A.V. Club ("Whitford and Jenkins clearly delight in the verbose script") and byWired, whose reviewer (granting 9 of 10 stars) calledCabin "a smart sendup of horror movies and mythology...with a peculiar relish that testifies to the moviemakers' love of genre film... a smart, sarcastic and deliriously fun journey into the belly of the horror beast." He cited the "witty banter, creative twists" and "clippy, quippy dialog that liftedFirefly andBuffy the Vampire Slayer to cult status."[39]
Ann Hornaday ofThe Washington Post, giving the movie 3 of 4 stars, wrote:
"A fiendishly clever brand of meta-level genius propelsThe Cabin in the Woods, a pulpy, deceivingly insightful send-up of horror movies that elicits just as many knowing chuckles as horrified gasps. [It] comes not only to praise the slasher-, zombie- and gore-fests of yore but to critique them, elaborating on their grammatical elements and archetypal figures even while searching for ways to put them to novel use. The danger in such a loftily ironic approach is that everything in the film appears with ready-made quotation marks around it... But by then, the audience will have picked up on the infectiously goofy vibe of an enterprise that, from its first sprightly moments, clearly has no intention of taking itself too seriously."[40]
Eric Goldman, writing forIGN, called the movie "an incredibly clever and fun take on classic horror movie tropes."[41]SF Gate said, "The cliches come at an onslaught pace" in "a wonderfully conceived story that gives a bigger than life and fascinating explanation for why so many horror movie cliches exist in the first place... By the time the ride is over, director Drew Goddard and co-writers Goddard and Joss Whedon will change course three or four times, nodding and winking but never losing momentum."[42] Of the screenplay by Goddard and Whedon, aCNN reviewer praised "these horror hipsters' acidic, postmodern designs on one of the movie industry's hoariest, least respected staples... the dialogue is always a notch or three smarter and snappier than you'd expect."[43]
Keith Phipps ofThe A.V. Club addressed "...the difficult challenge of putting across a satirical film with a serious body count.Cabin touches on everything from theEvil Dead andFriday the 13th to the mechanized mutilations of theSaw series while digging deeper into theLovecraftian roots of horror in an attempt to reveal what makes the genre work... It's an exercise inmetafiction that, while providing grisly fun, never distances viewers. And it's entertaining, while asking the samequestion of viewers and characters alike: Why come to a place you knew all along was going to be so dark and dangerous?"[44]
In a more mixed review,Lisa Schwarzbaum ofEntertainment Weekly, calling herself "a wised-up viewer," gave the film a "B−" grade and said, "The movie's biggest surprise may be that the story we think we know from modern scary cinema—that horror is a fun, cosmic game, not much else—here turns out to be pretty much the whole enchilada." She nevertheless praised the talents of Whitford and Jenkins: "These two experienced actors provide the film's adult-level entertainment."[45]
Betsy Sharkey of theLos Angeles Times believed that the film "is an inside joke" and also said, "The laughs [in the film] come easily, the screams not so much."[46] David Rooney ofThe Hollywood Reporter remarked, "It's just too bad the movie is never much more than a hollow exercise in self-reflexive cleverness that's not nearly as ingenious as it seems to think."[47]
A. O. Scott ofThe New York Times said, "Novelty and genre traditionalism often fight to a draw. Too much overt cleverness has a way of spoiling dumb, reliable thrills. And despite the evident ingenuity and strenuous labor that went into it,The Cabin in the Woods does not quite work." Scott added:
"Some of the pleasure of the first (and best) part ofThe Cabin in the Woods comes from trying to see just over the narrative horizon and figure out what these incompatible sets of clichés have to do with each other. Two distinct kinds of movie are being yoked, by violence, together, and the performers inhabit their familiar roles with unusual wit."[48]
| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bram Stoker Award | June 2013 | Best Screenplay[49] | Joss Whedon andDrew Goddard | Won |
| British Fantasy Award | November 3, 2013 | Best Screenplay[50] | Joss Whedon Drew Goddard | Won |
| Central Ohio Film Critics Association[51] | January 3, 2013 | Best Original Screenplay | Drew Goddard Joss Whedon | Runner-up |
| Best Picture | 5th place | |||
| Chicago Film Critics Association | December 17, 2012 | Most Promising Filmmaker | Drew Goddard | Nominated |
| Detroit Film Critics Society[52] | December 14, 2012 | Best Screenplay | Drew Goddard Joss Whedon | Nominated |
| Empire Awards | March 24, 2013 | Best Horror | Nominated | |
| Fangoria Chainsaw Award[53] | June 13, 2013 | Best Screenplay | Drew Goddard Joss Whedon | Won |
| Best Supporting Actor | Fran Kranz | Won | ||
| Best Wide-Release Film | Won | |||
| Best Makeup/Creature FX | David LeRoy Anderson | Won | ||
| Golden Trailer Awards[54] | May 31, 2012 | Best Horror TV Spot | Won | |
| Best Standee for Feature Film | Nominated | |||
| Hugo Award | September 1, 2013 | Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form | Drew Goddard Joss Whedon | Nominated |
| Kansas City Film Critics Circle[55] | December 16, 2012 | Best Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror Film | Won | |
| Motion Picture Sound Editors[56] | February 17, 2013 | Best Sound Editing – Music in a Feature Film | Clint Bennett (supervising music editor) Tony Lewis (music editor) Julie Pearce (music editor) | Nominated |
| Online Film Critics Society | December 24, 2012 | Best Original Screenplay | Joss Whedon Drew Goddard | Nominated |
| Phoenix Film Critics Society[57][58] | December 18, 2012 | Overlooked Film of the Year | Nominated | |
| San Diego Film Critics Society | December 11, 2012 | Best Original Screenplay | Drew Goddard Joss Whedon | Nominated |
| Saturn Awards | June 26, 2013 | Best Horror or Thriller Film | Won | |
| Best Writing | Drew Goddard Joss Whedon | Nominated | ||
| Toronto Film Critics Association | December 18, 2012 | Best First Feature | Drew Goddard | Nominated |
On April 13, 2015, author Peter Gallagher filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in California federal court againstJoss WhedonandDrew Goddard, the creators of the film.[59] Gallagher claimed that due to the similarities between the film and his 2006 novelThe Little White Trip: A Night in the Pines, Whedon and Goddard had used his work without permission. The lawsuit demanded $10 million in damages.[60] Whedon and Goddard were named as defendants, along with the production companyMutant Enemy and distributorLionsgate.[59][61] The case was dismissed five months later.[62]
