Friday, December 20, 2013

16 Nights of Horor- Night #1: The Cabin in the Woods

I remember wanting to see The Cabin in the Woods while it was in the theaters but not enough to make a second trip back after I initially saw the cardboard display. When I saw it was available on Netflix, I quickly added it to my queue. In the time since then, however, it never really caught my eye again or created a burning desire to watch it.

Tonight was a little different though. I was lying in bed, tired from the past 5 months of school but not quite ready to turn the light out on this first glorious night of freedom. As I logged into Netflix on the ol' laptop and started scrolling down to look for some new recommendations (because 498 horror films, Disney's Cars Tales and Pocoyo aren't enough), it finally caught my eye again.

The Cabin in the Woods starts with 5 friends who travel to the aforementioned cabin, but their story is actually being controlled by a large network of directors, engineers, etc. I found myself dying to Google the film and "activate my schemata" as I usually do, but I resisted the urge.

I'm glad I did.

I knew very little of the film prior to watching it and as I am writing this, I still haven't Googled it. I saw Joss Whedon's name come up in the credits and I knew he was responsible for Buffy, Dark Angel (?) and some series about a space ship on Sci Fi(?). Based on that, I decided to just go along--despite my initial confusion. I figured I was in good hands, and I was right.

You know all those cliches in horror movies? So does he. I usually laugh at the fate of all the flat characters and tokens, but in this movie, I started to get a little upset about their manipulation at the hands of this mysterious network. Things were ultimately explained, but I never really got the chance to laugh because things got cuh-ray-zee. The Cabin in the Woods acknowledges the horror movie stereotypes and has fun with them. It was so fun, in fact, that pretty soon, I was smiling at the film's creativity and imagination, which ultimately inspired me to get my butt back to blogging.

And I've got 15 more nights of horror movies and writing. Life is good.

16 Nights of Horror: Introduction

Forget the terror of Halloween night. Forget 30 days of thanks. Forget the 12 days of Christmas. I am going to have the best winter break ever: I have decided that I will watch one horror movie every night--even during the actual holidays. After watching, I'll sit down and do some writing. On some nights, it might be a review; on others, a reflection; on the rest, who knows?

The point is I'll be writing. And that's something that I haven't done in a long time.

I was going to read The Hunger Games...

There's always spring break, right?