“Cloverfield” opens with a test pattern and some official-looking Defense Department lettering telling us that we’re seeing video footage recovered from “the area formerly known as Central Park.” It’s a chilling opening for its obliqueness alone. The movie’s first few minutes show us a young couple flirting and cavorting in a nicely appointed Upper West Side apartment: This is footage they’ve shot themselves as they horse around. It’s reassuring evidence of the everyday quality of our lives.

But there’s more on that videotape, a record of terrible events that happened some three weeks later. Nearly the first third of “Cloverfield” consists of setup — it’s a leisurely and confident, perhaps too confident, way of opening up a movie. We learn more about the characters we saw in that earlier footage, Rob (Michael Stahl-David), who’s being feted by his friends before heading off to that job in Japan, and Beth (Odette Yustman), a woman who should probably be Rob’s girlfriend, but isn’t quite. We also meet Rob’s brother, Jason (Mike Vogel), and Jason’s girlfriend, Lily (Jessica Lucas), as well as Rob’s best friend, Hud (T.J. Miller), a rather annoying spud who’s been charged with recording the partygoers’ farewells to Rob, although he’s continually distracted by Marlena (Lizzy Caplan), a raven-haired beauty who’s shown up at the party — his camera follows her woozily, as if struck by lovesickness.

It would be unfair to reveal too many of the details of “Cloverfield,” but by now nearly everyone knows that someone — or something — lops the head off the Statue of Liberty and sends it rolling, like a forlorn bowling ball, down the streets of New York. That’s a gripping, poetic image by itself — so poetic that the partygoers and passersby who have gathered in the streets raise their phones in unison, like a high-tech Greek chorus, to snap pictures of it.

But from there, the picture becomes less intriguing and more numbing. There are very few, if any, touches of humor in “Cloverfield,” but there’s lots of screaming and lots of realistic approximations of human suffering: This isn’t Godzilla cartoonishly chomping the heads off random citizens. The movie is unpleasant to the point of being unconscionable; it’s so relentless that there’s no suspense, nothing that makes us wonder what’s going to happen next. The picture — written by Drew Goddard — does build dread, but not much else. And in places, it’s very carelessly made: For the most part, we know it’s Hud behind the lens, but in some later scenes, we have no idea who’s manning the camera, as if that were a detail we shouldn’t care about.

Maybe we’re supposed to give Abrams and Reeves extra points for cleverness, for the way they’ve adapted traditional narrative into YouTube-style storytelling, using seemingly homegrown video footage to heighten the sense of immediacy. But we’ve already seen a far more effective version of that approach in Brian De Palma’s Iraq war drama“Redacted,” and George Romero’s upcoming “Diary of the Dead” makes use of some similar techniques. It’s no longer good enough to be among the first; you have to be an effective storyteller, too, and that’s where Reeves, Goddard and Abrams fail.

Is “Cloverfield” trying to be a “fun” monster movie, or is it trying to say something about the way, post-9/11, we experience horrific events? I simply have no idea. There are many people who walk around thinking, “9/11 is the most dramatic, most significant event in our lives,” just as there are others who think, “Big deal. It was only a matter of time until we were attacked on our own soil.” If 1950s horror films were really about the communist threat, as we’re constantly and needlessly reminded by film scholars, then why can’t modern horror films mirror our own fears about real-life terrorism? There’s no reason that they can’t. But there’s also no reason we have to accept the cheapening of real-life tragedy as a means of entertainment. “Cloverfield” harnesses the horror of 9/11 — specifically as it was felt in New York — and repackages it as an amusement-park ride. We see familiar buildings exploding and crumpling before our eyes, and plumes of smoke rolling up the narrow corridors formed by lower-Manhattan streets, images that were once the province of news footage and have now been reduced to special effects. Kewl!

I’m not saying those images should never be used dramatically in any way. But like all potent images, they deserve some care and respect, and some discretion. Why use them just for kicks, as a means to get a rise out of the audience as it recognizes something familiar and terrifying? “Cloverfield” takes the trauma of 9/11 and turns it into just another random spectacle at which to point and shoot. The picture’s overconfident sense of immediacy is precisely what makes it so remote. Maybe we now live in a world where we record the moment first and feel it later. If that’s the case, “Cloverfield” leaves us waiting to feel.

But Hollywood’s ingrained tendency to ignore people over 50 or so — with occasional, ultra-weepy exceptions, in the vein of “Cocoon” or “On Golden Pond” — runs counter to various cultural and demographic realities, both absolute and relative. On one hand, the population is growing older, on average, in the United States and most other Western countries. On the other hand, accepted modes of behavior for older people are shifting. “Late Bloomers” is an entertaining diversion, mostly because Rossellini and Hurt are a pair of seasoned and graceful pros who know how to work every line and every gesture, and it’s great to see them playing characters who are exactly their age. (In real life, Hurt is 62 and Rossellini 59.) But in a certain way the movie feels pretty old-fashioned: I’m not sure the social prejudices Gavras tries to mine for laughs here quite exist anymore.

Hurt’s character, Adam, is supposed to be a prestigious architect nearing retirement age who startles his Italian-born wife, Mary (Rossellini), and colleagues when he starts wearing a leather jacket and jeans to work and going out drinking with much younger colleagues. But for better or worse, the real-world workplace is full of such guys, and I don’t think younger people these days are alarmed to encounter elders who decline to play canasta or don sky-blue golf slacks. Arguably, the trend toward permanently emulating youth is just as ridiculous, in its own way, as is retiring to Scottsdale the moment the Social Security checks start to arrive. But that’s just a function of each generation’s inborn right to make fun of the one that’s slightly older than it.

If anything, it’s Mary who seems like the oddball in “Late Bloomers.” Based on one episode of memory loss, possibly caused by stress or depression, she concludes that both she and Adam are entering a steep downward spiral and starts outfitting their house with bathtub grab-bars, giant-button telephones and other old-people gadgetry. She also gets involved, more intriguingly, with a Grey Panthers group who lobby Adam to build a “transgenerational eco-community” retirement home, one so attractive that it will make “younger people look forward to getting old.” One wishes that Gavras (who is the daughter, by the way, of eminent Greco-French filmmaker Costa-Gavras) had developed this aspect of the story a little further. There are relatively few films about retirement homes (major props here to Sarah Polley’s“Away From Her”) despite the fact — or perhaps because of the fact — that most of us will end up living in them at some stage.

As to the sexuality and romantic life of Adam and Mary, there are two things to say: First, that area isn’t nearly the taboo it used to be either, as the last 15 years or so of Helen Mirren’s career has demonstrated, and second, this is the movies, so don’t look for glaring, naked realism. Isabella Rossellini remains one of the most beautiful women in the world, although she’s clearly not young, and Hurt, while fully looking his age, still cuts a virile figure in his faux-youthful wardrobe. Gavras absolutely has her heart in the right place, and tries to make the point that age is no guarantor of wise behavior, and that people Adam and Mary’s age are just as prone to lust, vanity, egotism and all-around poor decision-making as anyone else. She does, however, fall prey to the general tendency to depict golden-age sexuality as being just the same as younger people’s, only with larger beds, more money and longer periods of time involved.

“Late Bloomers” is a modest Euro-indie with a modest potential audience, but I expect we’ll see a coming boom in romantic yarns made by, for and about the aging boomer and post-boomer populations. Fox has big hopes, for instance, for “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” the forthcoming film from “Shakespeare in Love” director John Madden, which stars Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith and Bill Nighy as a group of British seniors who relocate to India with so-called unexpected results (i.e., romance, renewal, rejuvenation, etc.). That film’s box-office yield will be understood, no doubt, as a test of the showbiz truism I mentioned earlier: Is the 50-plus audience ready to come back to the theaters, and will some number of younger viewers play along?

I don’t claim to know the answer to that, and I’m not sure it’s an interesting or worthwhile question. I do know that movies crafted to pander to older viewers, when they’re imagined as some kind of narrowly defined niche audience, are always less interesting than those — like “Away From Her” or“The Straight Story” or “Harold and Maude” or“About Schmidt” — that dare to imagine aging, with all its unavoidable problems, as a universal and essential element of the human tragicomedy. “Late Bloomers” isn’t anywhere near that level, but at least it’s trying.

“Late Bloomers” is now playing atCinema Village in New York, with other cities and DVD release to follow.

As its devotees will explain to you — sometimes in long-winded detail — Whedon’s signature series“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was about many things, and the killing of vampires was often an incidental plot motor but rarely the centerpiece. Along with its companion series, “Angel,” “Buffy” was best appreciated for its long, slow maturation and metamorphosis; there’s just too damn much of it to soak up on DVD over a holiday weekend. (Taken together, those two series offer 255 episodes!) Although Whedon will be identified with “Buffy,” and with the small screen, until the day he dies (he got his showbiz start as a writer on “Roseanne” in the late ’80s), he’s not a total newbie to the movies. He co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for “Toy Story” in 1996, as well as the not-nominated-for-anything screenplay for“Alien: Resurrection” a year later.

Between then and now, Whedon’s only cinematic venture was the 2005“Serenity,” a spinoff from his failed but beloved western-in-space series“Firefly,” whose fan base (I think) continues to grow a full decade after its cancellation. But in a shift that looks more sudden than it is, the 47-year-old New York native has plunged into moviemaking full bore. This week sees the national release of“The Cabin in the Woods,” a long-brewing, mid-budget horror puzzler hatched by Whedon and his longtime collaborator and protégé Drew Goddard (who directs). Just a couple of weeks later, we’ll see Whedon’s debut as an A-list Hollywood writer-director, at the helm of“The Avengers,” the culminating chapter of the recent series of Marvel Comics superhero adventures. (I know I’m not alone in wishing that Whedon would take on theother “Avengers” franchise, the 1960s British spy series so poorly served by its 1998 film adaptation. But that isn’t what this is.) After that, he has an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” that’s already in the can, and a sci-fi script called “In Your Eyes” that’s in production.

Whether or not Whedon’s storytelling skills are best served by this switch from the long arc of TV drama to the punchier, more concise and primarily visual mode of the movies is, let’s just say, an open question that’s likely to attract all kinds of viewpoints. As for the funny, surprising and action-packed “Cabin in the Woods,” you can read my review if you dare, but many Whedon fans may understandably wish to see it while knowing as little as possible. (Some of my conversation with Whedon has been expunged, for spoiler-protection reasons.) Horror buffs will admire its ingenious twist on an archetypal setup, which may not be entirely new but is certainly put together with humor and generosity. I’ve had several anxious Whedon acolytes ask me whether they’ll enjoy “Cabin” even though they can’t stand horror movies, and I’m going to answer that forcefully: Maybe! It depends!

Whedon called me one evening last week from his Los Angeles office while I was having dinner with friends. I adjourned to the bedroom.

Joss, I apologize for the background noise. I’m at a dinner party in Brooklyn, and when I told people you’d be calling, they all started talking about how much they loved “Firefly.” You know how dinner parties go in that direction.

Yes, it’s a law.

Is that the show that people talk to you about the most? I mean, it got canceled and everything, so obviously it wasn’t as popular as it might have been. But do you run into closet “Firefly” fans all over the world?

I do, I do. It surprised me because I definitely hear about it as much as I hear about “Buffy,” which ran for seven seasons. It’s definitely got its own following, which is awesome.

I’ve had some letter-writers make the comparison between “Firefly” and the recent mega-flop“John Carter,” which I wouldn’t have thought of by myself. But I couldn’t help wondering whether you felt some particular sympathy or compassion for Andrew Stanton and the people who made “John Carter,” which is now being held up as a symbol of everything that’s wrong with Hollywood.

Of course I feel some sympathy. Andrew is a sweetheart and a really great director. I haven’t seen the movie, I have to say. But there’s been, it seems to me, some mishandling in how it was rolled out and that’s always tough to deal with. The fact that he’s directed the most beloved animated classic of all time might provide comfort, but it’s rough. When they put so much behind a movie, and then aren’t even confident enough to keep the title, you know that doesn’t put the best foot forward. That’s got to be a rough situation for him.

It gets weirder the more you think about it. I mean, they made a movie that grossed about $200 million worldwide. So a lot of people liked it, and it’s still going to go down as an enormous disaster.

Well, there’s always this spin on things. I mean,“Sherlock Holmes,” the second one ["Game of Shadows"], did numbers that were comparable to“Mission: Impossible 4″ [aka "Ghost Protocol"], and nobody talked about that. It’s all based on expectation, and at some point even Schadenfreude.

I think that definitely plays a role. If I said I wasn’t guilty of that at times I’d be lying. Listen, break down the history of “Cabin in the Woods” for me. Was that actually being made at around the same time as you were working on “The Avengers”?

No. “Cabin in the Woods” was actually finished three years ago. Drew was finishing the sound mix right when I got the gig on “Avengers.” So it’s been two years since we put it to bed.

So it’s just a weird coincidence that they’re both hitting at the same time?

When Lionsgate told me the week they were targeting [for "Cabin"], I laughed and laughed, and then it was fear.

And then you have the premiere of “Avengers” almost right away. It’ll be the closing night film at Tribeca, and premiere in L.A. around the same time.

They’re premiering it a few times, and early on, and that’s exciting to me because it shows confidence, and it means I get to go to a lot of premieres.

It’s not going to be easy for us to talk about “Cabin,” so let me avoid leading questions. How do you want to describe the guiding concept, which I think is simultaneously ingenious and hilarious?

“Cabin in the Woods” is, for me, a way of making the kind of movie that I love and at the same time making another kind of movie that I love. It’s a way of taking the cabin and — not blowing it up, but kind of exploding it. Not just enjoying it, but turning it over in your hand over and over and looking at it. I know that’s not a great sell, but that’s really what it is to me.

If you take the premise, and then you take the idea that the premiseis a premise — without losing the audience, without winking at them — how much can you do? How far can you take it? However far I think I can take it, Drew will take it much farther. And that’s the glory of the thing, what’s in that cabin in the woods is even worse than a bunch of kids being killed. It’s something even darker than that. And I have to be a little proud there.

Right. I love that you found a way to do something that is a little meta, a little self-reflective about the horror genre and its requirements, without having the characters be snarky or self-aware the whole time.

I’m a big fan of “Scream,” and I’m a big fan of “Scream” because I was terrified for the characters. I understood the trick they were doing, but it was so well orchestrated that their snark and their knowledge of genre could not save them. In this, we went a very different way. I wanted to save them from postmodern self-awareness! The movie obviously has a very self-aware element to it, but if you’re not invested in the characters, if you don’t believe that the characters, and not just the kids, but Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins [who play two mysterious onlookers who seem to be manipulating events], if you don’t believe that they truly are the people they are, then nothing means anything, we are all cardboard cutouts. It’s a movie that deals a lot with manipulation, but you can’t really talk about that unless you care about the people who are being manipulated. Stanley Kubrick might disagree, and he could probably pull it off.

In a funny way, we do grow to care about Bradley and Richard’s characters. They puzzled me, they confused me, they pissed me off. But their fate becomes important too.

Besides being lovely guys and great actors, Bradley and Richard represent a completely different kind of identification. We are them — and not just me and Drew, although specifically me and Drew — but they are the people who have chosen for what happens to happen. And you, as the viewer, are the person who chooses that, if you have gone to see this movie. The act of walking into the movie makes you the one to see these people suffer. It does not happen if you do not watch.

It’s like one of those issues in physics, involving the uncertainty principle or the observational paradox.

If you don’t go to the movie, maybe those kids have a really nice weekend. What I’m trying to say is, America, don’t go to the movie. Wait, what have I done?

In terms of coming up with a list of five horror-movie characters — and you explain it in the film: the Athlete, the Whore, the Fool, the Virgin, etc. — how did you get to that point? Did you have to debate how many archetypes there were, did you go and do research?

We did research. I did about 10 more years of research than Drew did, but we’ve both been doing it all our lives. And at one point we said, do we really want an extra person? But we knew we couldn’t live without five. We didn’t want someone there who was just an extra body, we really needed to have the five. We’re going to throw a party, it’s going to be crazy, there’s going to be five of us. It’s an odd number, but you need the essential people and no one else.

I don’t imagine either of you needed to read Carol Clover’s academic work on the “Final Girl.” Although I bet you know about it.

Yes, the “Final Girl” is well known in the horror community. As well as the “murderous gaze” and all kinds of other terms that come to play in this movie.

I was trying to come up with some potential similarities between “Cabin in the Woods” and “The Avengers,” which of course I haven’t seen yet. I was having a hard time before I started thinking about rules. Maybe this is true of all genre storytelling, but you’re very interested in rules and you like universes with rules. Both of these movies are like that.

Well, yeah. The more you can create a structure by which people live in a fantastical situation and by which they will act, and the more you lay that out for the audience, the more they will feel at home in it. And for me, there’s always going to be two things going on at once. There’s going to be the people trying to manipulate a situation and controlling it from above, and the people who are actually in the trenches. In that sense, “Cabin in the Woods” and “The Avengers” are oddly similar.

Don’t you have the particular problem with “The Avengers” that there are a zillion comic-book fans who are going to jump on you if you make one tiny mistake?

You know, I suppose you do, but people are always asking me if I’m worried about that. I’m totally not. I feel like, speaking as a lifelong Marvel fan, this movie will deliver unto them. And I know that someone will be like [comic-book guy voice], “I can’tbelieve they took the purple out of Hawkeye’s outfit! This is the worst movie ever.” Because there’s always gotta be somebody who’s gonna hate. But the fact of the matter is that this movie celebrates what has always been great about those characters, and I feel confident in it, and it’s a respectful, exciting story about the insane-o characters.

There’s been so much talk among fans about “What is the alien race?” and the alien race is not one of the big Marvel alien races because the point of the movie is elsewhere. But the debate rages on every time there’s a shot of one. That debate is ultimately raging on between a very small percentage of the people who will need to see this movie for it to be a hit. Ultimately, I don’t think of the fan reaction as something that I’m worried about, because I don’t separate them from me. I separate me as a fan from me as a storyteller because you can’t turn the film into the Chris Farley show: “Remember that story line when you were red? That wasawesome.” You can’t do that. But you can bring the flavor to it.

You’re always trying to work with two demographics. There are certainly plenty of people who are serious fans of the genres, and serious fans of your work, but for something as big as a mainstream movie to connect, you have to go way beyond that.

I think one of the problems with “Serenity” was that they were like, “We’re gonna target your fan base!” And I was like, “Well, that’s bizarre.” Because they would be the only people who would definitely show up. And my fan base is not nearly as big as I think it is. But with “Avengers,” particularly Iron Man right now, because of the movies, Captain America, too, and the Hulk because of the TV show, everyone’s got their own juice. But at the end of the day, it’s a huge investment. For the movie to work financially, it needs to reach out to people who would never crack a comic and haven’t seen all the other Marvel movies, and that’s really the dance that you do, between the expectation as a fan and your desire to make it palatable to people in the know.

It’s not so much a tonal problem as opposed to how much information you put in. How much will people glean if they haven’t seen the other films? What’s been exciting to me is that people in tests, who haven’t seen the other movies and don’t read the comics, have almost universally said that they had no trouble and that you don’t need to see the other films to see it. And my hope is that Marvel will reach out to the people who don’t see action movies, who don’t see superhero movies, because there’s this kind of old-fashioned aesthetic to it. It’s kind of an old-fashioned movie. It’s not a cavalcade of sensation. There’s a ton of stuff in it and we really put them through the wringer, but at the end of the day, it’s a human story that I feel people can relate to on a lot of levels.

Whereas with “Cabin in the Woods” the budget is lower and I would assume the expectations are more modest. You’re primarily looking for the horror-movie audience, right?

I’d like to think that “Cabin in the Woods” is a tent-pole movie [meaning a major attraction that brings in all four "quadrants" of the audience], but I know one of those quadrants would be traumatized for life. Don’t bring the kids! It is a horror movie. I’ve also had people who don’t watch horror tell me how much they’ve enjoyed it. But at the end of the day, those are the people we will go to first and say, “We will deliver you the goods,” and hopefully broaden from there.

I know that Drew Goddard wrote for you on both “Angel” and “Buffy,” and went on to write “Cloverfield.” But this is his directing debut. What convinced you he could pull it off?

His tallness. He looks very commanding up there. Drew and I have told stories together for years, and to each other for years, and a storyteller who is working in a visual medium, you can tell when they have a command of the visual aspect of it. Drew is an extraordinary guy and very charismatic, so there are two sides to directing. There’s knowing what you’re doing, and convincing people you know what you’re doing. And I could tell, just through our interactions, that Drew had both of those things. Because some people are super-smart, great at whatever it is they do, but you get them onstage and you’re like, “Oh, they have to relate topeople. Oops.” And Drew doesn’t have that. You want to follow him, and aesthetically we were always on the same page, and we wrote this thing as though it was coming from one voice. So I couldn’t have been more confident.

The big twist in the film, which we won’t discuss right now, that came from both of you guys?

It came from me. The plot is something I presented to Drew as “I think I found the movie that we could actually sit down and write in a weekend,” because it has a third act. It starts one way then takes you another way and just when you think you know where it’s going, it goes a third way. And this is how it wraps up. And not only did I present it to him all in a bundle, but it came to me that way. The structure came first. Not, “We should make a movie about a guy named Marty.” Or, “We should make a movie about two guys in an office. What could they do?” The structure is what appeared before me, shining like a unicorn. And I went, “Oh.” And we just filled it in from there. And structure is the hardest part of storytelling. With “The Avengers,” the structure nearly killed me. It was very difficult to make it flow and cohere in terms of all the changing perspectives and characters, all these movie stars, all these beats to hit. It’s a ridiculously complex puzzle. But once you’ve got the puzzle, and you’re just filling in the voices and coming up with the moments, that’s what’s fun.

You haven’t made a film in seven years — or at least haven’t gotten one released — and have only had the 27 episodes of “Dollhouse” on TV since “Angel” and “Buffy” went off the air in 2004. And all of a sudden, it’s cowabunga! Two movies in three weeks.

I don’t hate it. I won’t lie. I’m incredibly excited and proud of both of these movies and they have many similarities, but they really couldn’t be more different in so many ways It’s nice to be able to do that.

“The Cabin in the Woods” opens nationwide this week, and “The Avengers” will open around the world on May 4.

See, “Cabin in the Woods” is a self-knowing horror movie that is partly about a group of college students behaving like dumb-asses and unleashing unknown terrors at an isolated mountain retreat full of secrets, and partly about what it means to make that kind of movie and tell that kind of story. And if you’re rolling your eyes right about now and saying, “Oh no, another damn movie that’s too clever for its britches,” well, that’s OK too. Because Whedon (creator of“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and“Firefly”), who produced and co-wrote the screenplay, and his longtime collaborator Goddard, who co-wrote and makes his directing debut here (after writing“Cloverfield”), have that angle covered.

Furthermore, if you’re thinking that Whedon and Goddard’s title sounds more like acategory of movie than a specific movie, you’re absolutely on the right track. You can probably guess who the characters are before I describe them: There’s the studly athletic Curt (Chris Hemsworth of “Thor” fame), along with his borderline slutty girlfriend, Jules (Anna Hutchison), and you can be pretty sure what’s going to happen tothem, right? There’s the reserved, bookish, decent Holden (Jesse Williams of TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy”), and the baked stoner Marty (Fran Kranz), who sees patterns and conspiracies everywhere he looks. Last but not least there’s Dana (Kristen Connolly), the shy and awkward brunette who’s being set up with Holden even though she’s not sure she wants to be — and if you’ve ever seen a horror movie in your life, you don’t need me to explain her role.

But even before this quintet heads out into the wilderness for a little relaxation and invocation of demons — even before they blithely ignore the crazy old guy at the rural gas station who warns them that if they drive up that durn road they won’t be driving out again — we can tell there’s another level to this whole business. (I’m not crossing the spoiler line here, I promise.) In the very first scene of the movie, we see Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman from “The West Wing”) playing a couple of wisecracking salarymen in shirts and ties, classic supporting characters from some workplace comedy. Except that their workplace appears to be some kind of panopticon command center, from which they can observe and even manipulate our five idiotic protagonists as they launch themselves into horror-movie hell.

Without getting into specifics, it’s clear that Sitterson (Jenkins) and Hadley (Whitford) have seen this show before. They watch with the knowing, slightly bored gaze of aficionados, who feel pretty sure how things are going to end up but can’t help getting a little bit invested in the story as it goes along. At one point, Hadley sighs (prophetically, as things turn out), “Yeah — but I just think it would have been cooler with mermen.” As more details about their workplace are revealed, they even conduct a vigorous betting pool on what exact fate will befall the five sacrificial lambs in that eponymous cabin. What is the nature of Sitterson and Hadley’s investment and involvement? And what’s the connection to various other horror-movie scenarios they can watch playing out around the world on their monitors? (I especially like the schoolgirl nightmare streaming live from Japan, which appears to combine “The Ring,” “The Grudge” and a few other Asian delights.)

Well, that’s the game, of course — but it’s a mistake to think of “Cabin in the Woods” as nothing more than a secret that’s waiting to be revealed. Much of the fun, not to mention a whole lot of splatter, comes after the central premise has become clear, when the archetypal teen victims declare their independence, and begin to fight back against their narrative enslavement. Whedon’s great strength (and occasionally his great weakness) is that he identifies so strongly with his fans, and “Cabin” is loaded with all sorts of references and in-jokes for horror buffs, beginning of course with the “Evil Dead” series but proceeding through a full range of the gruesome, the gothic and the grotesque. I honestly believe that I could tell you right now exactly what influences he and Goddard have combined in this script, and it wouldn’t “ruin” your experience or any such thing. But that’s a discussion for another time, and no, I’m not going to do it.

For a mid-budget production, the effects in “Cabin in the Woods” get pretty delirious, as the universes of the trapped teens and bored functionaries collide with disastrous consequences. Goddard’s direction strikes me as capable, direct and not especially showy, which is a pretty strong endorsement for a movie as high-concept as this one is. (He has the aid of veteran cinematographer Peter Deming, who shot“Drag Me to Hell,” “Evil Dead II,”“Mulholland Drive” and three of the four “Scream” films.) The cast are all game for their archetypal parts, especially Jenkins, Whitford and Fran Kranz as the indomitable pothead who figures out thatthings are not always what they seem, man. Other credited parts include the Werewolf Wrangler, the Dismemberment Goblins, and Fornicus, the Lord of Bondage and Pain. And in the end, Hadley is right: Itis cooler with mermen.

“The Cabin in the Woods” is now playing nationwide.

Eighteen years removed from his turn as a flamboyant drag queen in “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” and 12 years after his breakout performance in Christopher Nolan’s“Memento,”Pearce remains something of an enigma; he’s an English-born actor, living in Australia and working in Los Angeles. While he’s appeared in two of the last three best picture winners (“The Hurt Locker” and“The King’s Speech”) and earned an Emmy for his role as Monty Beragon opposite Kate Winslet in“Mildred Pierce,” he’s never quite earned the kind of movie star recognition he deserves from audiences or producers. His latest film, “Lockout,” a kind of screwball comedy disguised as a sci-fi thriller (think “Escape From New York” if the island of Manhattan were a high-tech prison in outer space), finds him playing the unlikely role of action star. It’s another strange twist in a uniquely eclectic career, but even drag queens have to flex their muscles from time to time.

A surprisingly slight man clad in jeans, a purple flannel shirt and a pristine pair of blue adidas gazelles, Pearce sat down with Salon at the Parker Meridien hotel to discuss his newest film, his disdain for the term “genre,” and his past as a teen bodybuilder.

“Lockout” seems like a bit of a departure from the kinds of movies you typically make. It’s your first blockbuster since “The Time Machine” in 2002. What attracted you to the project?

I think it was a number of things really. I’ve been asked to do action-oriented movies in the past and they just haven’t been right for me. They’ve felt a little serious or something — either the characters took themselves too seriously, or the film took itself too seriously — whereas this clearly doesn’t. Having said that, I’ve also been very aware in the past of action films that don’t take certain things seriously enough.

Can you give me an example?

I can’t think of [a title], because I don’t even store that kind of information. It’s one of those things we talk about here in America, where people can be very flippant about violence. A movie that gets a PG-13 rating can show someone running down a street killing 27 people. And there are no repercussions. In “Lockout,” my character has a cynical sense of humor, but it comes from a real place. And when you look at Joseph Gilgun’s character, who’s popping off hostages one by one, it’s not treated in a light-handed way. Even though there’s a heightened sense of reality to it, it has a more realistic view than some other action-oriented films.

It seems to walk a tightrope, or at least try to.

Yeah. It’s funny with genre films; I’ve never understood the way people talk about them. I’ve always thought you’re just diving into human psychology. It doesn’t matter whether it’s science fiction or action. Where do you even draw the line between genres? At the same time, I do think certain genres allow you to get away with certain behaviors. People can chew on their popcorn and go, “Ah well, it’s just a movie.” You can’t really say that about most of the films I do.

With the possible exceptions of “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” and “Memento” in flashes, I’m not sure I can remember a performance of yours in which you’re quite this funny or winning. Would you like to play more comedic roles?

Not necessarily. I don’t have an agenda and I don’t really have a view of my career if I’m not looking back at it. I just respond to what comes my way. As soon as I start to think about a plan, it suddenly feels very dishonest to me.

How do you choose your films? Is it a purely aesthetic decision?

Yeah, it’s just a response in the same way that you read books, and out of the five books you read, you go, “Wow, this one has really stuck with me.” Within that are various elements. Can I see myself as that character? Can I see myself doing something with that character that feels endless and timeless, and not boxed in? I look at screenplays and I go, “Yeah, it’s an interesting story, and I could step in there, but I feel like there’s something limited about it.” That’s what makes me say no to something. Or I’ll go, “Well the character’s fantastic, but the story’s lame, or doesn’t have enough in it, or whatever it happens to be.” Saying no to something can be just as affecting as saying yes to something. It just happens that I say no more often than I say yes.

So I’m assuming that you didn’t sign up for “Prometheus” because you wanted to make a science fiction film. 

Absolutely [not]. The character that I’m playing is fascinating. It didn’t even occur to me until I started doing all this press and people were like, “So, two science fiction movies. Is this your new thing?”

I know you can’t really get into the movie’s plot, but what was it like working with Ridley Scott?

It was amazing. It’s funny because every time I start to talk about my five minutes with Ridley Scott, I think about Russell Crowe working with him five times, and I go, “Really, what can I say?”

You have more insight than most.

(Laughter) I suppose I do. Ridley has a wonderful way of making you feel comfortable and making it feel like it’s a little, intimate story that you’re filming. You forget about the five 3-D cameras that are around and this massive world that this whole thing inhabits. He has a great regard for his actors and what he wants them to do; he’s a great communicator in that sense. Really, it was an absolute delight.

Do you remember the first time you saw “Alien”? It’s always been one of those movie-watching experiences that leaves a lasting impression on people.

I don’t remember the first time I saw it, but I’ve seen it a few times. And of course I watched it again prior to shooting “Prometheus.” I looked at it and realized it’s actually a horror movie. The fact that it’s set in space gives it the credibility and the integrity of there being strange creatures that can kill you. When you make a horror movie set in a house and some ooga-booga monster comes out from under the floorboards, you know it’s safe because it’s not actually real. I guess the realm of science fiction enables you to make a horror movie as effective as “Alien” because fuck knows what can come and get you out there in space. Listening to what Ridley has tosay about science fiction, and why science fiction exists, I think he’d probably laugh at a movie like “Lockout.”

One of the things that’s so curious about your career is that you seem to move seamlessly from supporting to leading roles and back again. It sounds like that’s not necessarily by design. Do you think of yourself as a leading man, in as much as that label still means anything in post-recession Hollywood?

I don’t and I think it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to feel like you can carry something. I know that’s a contradiction because I’ve played leading roles, but I play a leading role in “Memento” who’s wracked with anxiety and confusion. Or I play a leading role in “Lockout” who’s kind of smart-alecky and cynical. I struggle with the idea of playing the guy that everybody wants to be. I feel like I play the guy that everyone knows they’ve got inside themselves and they fucking wish wasn’t there. If there’s a theme across the characters I play, that’s probably it.

You’vedescribed yourself as having a “mini nervous breakdown” a decade ago about your acting career. What precipitated that and how did you get past it?

I went through a period where I just wanted to punch everybody. Since then, I’ve had a lot of therapy and I’ve figured a lot of things out. I think what was underlying it all was the fact that I’d been [acting] since I was a kid. Here I was at 30, still doing what I was doing when I was 8, and still responding to it all in exactly the same way. I didn’t feel confident saying this career that I have was based on the decision of an adult.

[Another] prime thing was that I just didn’t feel confident about what I was capable of and what skills I had. I needed to take a year away, reassess and realize that I’ve got some skills, I have something to offer and I can see the validity in this.

In aprofile for the Independent in the U.K., you were quoted as saying that “you need to have a level of emotional consistency when you raise a child, and I don’t know that I have that.” Do you think that’s a hazard of the career that you’ve chosen?

(Laughter) No, I think it’s just the moody bastard that I can be. Look, I’m probably far more stable now. Again, that probably goes hand in hand with the fluctuating person that I’ve been in the past. But having said that, I still don’t want children and my wife doesn’t want children. I still have those moments — they’re much less frequent and to a much lesser degree — where I’m filled with intense anger. I hate myself and I hate everything going on around me, but I know how to handle it now.

Few people, at least in this country, know about your teen bodybuilding career. 

Weird, right?

A little, yeah. How did that come about?

I was going to the gym when I was pretty young, just a kid with his mum. She would be doing aerobics or whatever, and I was doing general fitness stuff. It was a gym that was owned and run by a husband and wife team — she was a runner-up Miss Universe a couple of times, a Miss Australia winner. Her husband was one of the powers that be in the bodybuilders federation. Purely because it was that gym, they were saying to me, “You know, you should think about entering this competition.” I really had no interest in pursuing it. It was just a fluke.

A lot of actors use their visibility as a kind of platform for their political views. Is there any cause that you feel particularly passionate about?

There are a lot of things that I feel strongly about, but I really don’t feel like I’m the right person to blow his trumpet. I think that it affects how I’m viewed as an actor.

Maybe it’s a little lame to say that, because if I’ve got the chance to make a change, then shouldn’t I? At the same time, I don’t want to undermine [myself] by getting on my soapbox. But in answer to your question, animals. Animals, animals.

You’re English-born, but raised in Australia. How does it feel that a majority of your audience recognizes you for the work you’ve done in America?

Hollywood is pretty much the center of the filmmaking world. I know they make a lot of films in India, but I don’t speak Indian. I’m always trying to work more at home; there’s something very personal about that. Of course, I would like those films to be seen. It was great when“Animal Kingdom” had the effect that it did and “Priscilla” as well. But it’s always an honor to work here. When the Americans make a good film, it’s pretty special really.

As Greenwald pointed out, Poitras’ case is a glaring example of the government’s continued disregard of Fourth Amendment rights as they apply to journalists and documentary filmmakers working on subject matter related to U.S. military operations, American foreign policy and any other domain claimed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Now, nonfiction filmmakers are speaking out.  Yesterday, the Cinema Eye organizationreleased an open letterand petition in protest of DHS actions, calling on the Obama administration to investigate this “chronic abuse of power” and to put an end to violations of “America’s bedrock principle of a free press.” The letter was signed by the Cinema Eye Executive Board and their Filmmaker Advisory Board, including well-known nonfiction filmmakers Alex Gibney, Albert Maysles, Morgan Spurlock and many others. The full letter is reproduced below:

April 9, 2012 – New York, New York – Cinema Eye, the film organization that hosts the Cinema Eye Honors and advocates for artistry and craft in nonfiction filmmaking, is releasing a statement today to vigorously protest the Department of Homeland Security’s treatment of our valued colleague, Laura Poitras.

The letter is signed by the full Cinema Eye Executive Board as well as our Filmmaker Advisory Board, of which Poitras serves as Chair. The letter is also signed by 25 Cinema Eye nominated filmmakers, including five Academy Award winners.

Statement from Cinema Eye on Laura Poitras:

As members of the nonfiction filmmaking community, we want to express our outrage over the ongoing harassment of our colleague Laura Poitras by the US government and the Department of Homeland Security. We call on the Obama administration to investigate this abuse of power and to bring an end to this persistent violation of America’s bedrock principle of a free press.

Laura Poitras is one of America’s most important nonfiction filmmakers, the recipient of the 2011 Cinema Eye Honor for Outstanding Achievement in Direction for her landmark film, The Oath, and the chair of our Filmmaker Advisory Board. She was nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar and twice has been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her work. Her long list of credits, awards and impeccable credentials would be easy for anyone to verify.

Over the course of the last several years, as Laura has been working to chronicle the post-9/11 world and the effect of American policies here and abroad, she has been repeatedly harassed, detained, interrogated and has had her cameras and computers seized by Homeland Security officials as she attempts to re-enter her home country.

Not once in more than three dozen detentions and interrogations has Homeland Security found anything to justify this chronic abuse of power.

Within the last week, as Laura was returning from a recent trip abroad, she was once again detained. This time, however, she was also threatened with being handcuffed for attempting to take notes during her interrogation.

Nonfiction filmmakers perform a vital role in a democratic society, serving as observers and investigators of the world around us. It is unacceptable for any American nonfiction filmmaker or journalist to be treated in this manner. They must be able to return to their own country without fear of arrest or fear that their work product will be seized, solely because they are investigating or chronicling subject matter that may be sensitive or controversial.

We ask other members of the nonfiction film and journalism communities to protest this affront to a free press and we reiterate our call on the Obama administration to end these draconian and un-American policies once and for all.

Sincerely,

Sean Farnel
Andrea Meditch
Esther Robinson
AJ Schnack
Nathan Truesdell
Cinema Eye Honors Executive Board

Mila Aung-Thwin
R.J. Cutler
Sam Green
Steve James
Ellen Kuras
Audrey Marrs
James Marsh
Morgan Spurlock
Jennifer Venditti
Cinema Eye Honors Filmmaker Advisory Board

Clio Barnard
Joe Berlinger
Michael Collins
Alex Gibney
Davis Guggenheim
Lixin Fan
Alma Har’el
Asif Kapadia
Lise Lense-Møller
Tia Lessin
Kim Longinotto
Jeff Malmberg
Darius Marder
Albert Maysles
Donal Mosher
Michael Palmieri
Louie Psihoyos
Bill Ross
Turner Ross
Chris Shellen
Bruce Sinofsky
Geoffrey Smith
Ricki Stern
Paul Taylor
Marina Zenovich