The Cabin in the Woods: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
Line 41:
* [[Buffy-Speak]]: In the credits, even. "Japanese Floaty Girl."
* [[Casting Gag]]: This is the third time [[Amy Acker]] [[Angel|has played]] [[Dollhouse|a scientist]] in a Joss Whedon production.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]:
* [[Closed Circle]]: The titular cabin. {{spoiler|The controllers try very hard to ''keep it'' closed, especially when the tunnel back to civilization fails to [[Broken Bridge|conveniently blow up.]]}}
* [[Cluster F-Bomb]]: Sitterson's response to the Japan iteration. Made even more delightful in that it is targeted at a group of 9-year-olds.
* [[Creepy Basement]]
* [[Creepy Gas Station Attendant]]: Mordecai.
* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]: {{spoiler|Marty.}}
* [[Cruel and Unusual Death]]: ''All of them.''
* [[The Cuckoolander Was Right]]:
* [[Cultural Translation]]: [[In-Universe]]; the Kyoto scenario invokes J-Horror tropes rather than American [[Horror Tropes]]. {{spoiler|It's stated by the Director that all other locations also use specific local iterations of said horror tropes.}}
* [[Curiosity Killed the Cast]]: {{spoiler|The controllers' job is to lead them to the cellar [[Closed Circle|(and keep them contained in the staging site)]]. But once the cellar is open, its various artifacts exposed to the group's curiosity, the controllers can't do anything. It's up to the teens themselves to actually pick one. Of course, they ''all'' find something that interests them personally, and it was just a matter of who would activate their artifact first.}}
Line 63:
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: {{spoiler|The Ancient Ones, a bunch of sadistic god-like beings who like to watch humans die in [[Gorn|fascinating,]] troperiffic ways. [[You Bastard|Just like a horror-viewer.]]}}
* [[Empathic Environment]]: Invoked when Hadley and Sitterson fine-tune the weather to encourage Curt and Jules to fool around.
* [[Enforced Trope]]:
* [[Epic Fail]]: We know early on/from the trailers that there's an invisible grid blocking off the cabin area. Curt does not.
* [[Even Evil Has Loved Ones]]: [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Insofar as they can be called evil]], the opening scenes show Hadley talking to Sitterson about how he and his wife are preparing to have a baby.
* [[Everybody Lives]]: {{spoiler|The Japanese scenario. At least until the failure of the US branch leads to the end of the world...}}
* [[Expy]]: Fornicus, Lord of Bondage and Pain, is an obvious riff on [[Hellraiser|Pinhead]], with his puzzlebox, bondage outfit, and head full of sharp objects.
* [[Faceless Goons]]: "Internal Security"
* [[Face Revealing Turn]]: The ballerina girl/"Sugarplum Fairy".
* [[Final Girl]]: {{spoiler|''Enforced.'' Dana (the virgin) is allowed to live as long as she is the last one standing. Even when she and Marty have broken into the controller base, the guards are ordered to kill the virgin last. She's not actually a virgin, but the villains "work with what they've got."}}
* [[Five-Man Band]]: Enforced {{spoiler|to the point it becomes a crucial element of the plot. The characters begin the film as fleshed-out human beings rather than stereotypes; even the stoner, who we are introduced to while he is smoking an enormous bong, turns out to be witty and has some surprising insights to human nature, such as ''why'' he can get away with smoking an enormous bong in the middle of his car in broad daylight. As the film progresses, each character conforms more closely to archetypes through the scientists' use of chemicals - except the stoner, who is immune due to the Chem department giving him the wrong drugs.}}
** [[The Hero]]: Dana
** [[The Lancer]]: Marty
** [[The Smart Guy]]: Holden
** [[The Big Guy]]: Curt
** [[The Chick]]: Jules
* [[Foreshadowing]]:
** Marty's comment about how {{spoiler|society ''should'' crumble, but we're all to afraid to let it foreshadows the end.}}
Line 82:
** {{spoiler|The opening credits have unmistakable illustrations of [[Human Sacrifice]]}}.
* [[The Fool]]: Marty is called this by many, but he surprisingly fits into the Tarot archetype beyond just being a hippie stoner--he manages to succeed where others fail, often by pure luck.
* [[Freeze-Frame Bonus]]: Multiple, all overlapping. The myriad artifacts the cast finds in the basement, the board at the beginning showing
* [[Friendship Moment]]: When creepy station attendant Mordecai snaps angrily at Jules, Marty steps in to snark right back at him.
{{quote|'''Mordecai:''' "You sassin' me, boy?"
'''Marty:''' "You were rude to my friend."
* [[Funny Background Event]]: Of the horror or dark comedy variety.
** During the celebration , we continually see
** When the monsters attack, one of the screens shows the intern frantically holding up signs to the camera, trying to deliver a message to the control room.
* [[Genre Blindness]]: {{spoiler|Invoked in-universe on the [[Five-Man Band]].}}
* [[Genre Savvy]]:
** The main characters have shades of this.
**
** The whole movie can be seen as a subversion of the concept, as the main characters often exhibit [[Genre Savvy]] but every time they do so
** Marty is particularly [[Genre Savvy]], but
* [[Gorn]]: And loads of it.
* [[Gory Discretion Shot]]: Rather severely averted for the first wave of "The Carnage", then played surprisingly straight for wave two.
* [[Heroic BSOD]]:
* [[Hillbilly Horrors]]: "They may be zombified pain-
* [[History Repeats]]: {{spoiler|The US branch has had only one glitch, in 1998, when the Chem[ical] Department failed to do its duty. Guess which department failed to account for Marty's hobbies?}}
* [[Hoist by His Own Petard]]: {{spoiler|The controllers are set upon and killed by the various horrors they've sealed away to release on the subjects.}}
* [[Hotter and Sexier]]: {{spoiler|The white board for the betting pool has "witches" and "sexy witches"}} Though you never get to see them.
* [[Human Sacrifice]]:
* [[Improbable Weapon User]]:
* [[Improvised Weapon]]:
* [[I Need a Freaking Drink]]: When the scientists start cracking open beers, Lin says that while Hadley and Sitterson are celebrating, she is drinking.
* [[Industrialized Evil]]: The controllers have done this so long, they're completely desensitized to it and run a betting pool for fun. What's more, they've basically turned ritualistic murder into a factory assembly job.
* [[Infant Immortality]]: We see a classroom of Japanese schoolgirls (all age nine) being terrorized by an angry spirit.
* [[It Got Worse]]: "Oh, man..."
* [[Ironic Echo]]:
{{quote|'''''Curt:'''
* [[Jerk Jock]]: Subverted by Curtis, who is pushed into this role by the villains, but is actually an intelligent sociology major who never acts like an alpha male douchebag.
* [[Karmic Death]]:
**
**
* [[Killer Game Master]]: Hadley and Sitterson have this trope ''as their profession''.
* [[The Last of These Is Not Like the Others]]: Werewolves, robots, ghosts, zombies, giant snakes..... and a [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|bloodthirsty unicorn]].
* [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall]]:
** When Truman objects to {{spoiler|manipulating the teens to have sex in the woods, just so the cameras can capture Jules' nudity, the controllers respond with "Gotta keep the customers satisfied."}}
**
* [[Let's Split Up, Gang!]] / [[Never Split the Party]]:
* [[Lovable Jock]]: Curt and Holden.
* [[Monster Mash]]:
** The whiteboard has a [[Long List]]: [[Wolf Man|Werewolf]], [[Starfish Aliens|Alien Beast]], [[Mutants]], Wraiths, [[Everything's Deader with Zombies|Zombies]], [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|Reptilius]], [[Monster Clown|Clowns]], [[Wicked Witch|Witches]], [[Hot Witch|Sexy Witches]], [[Our Demons Are Different|Demons, Hell Lord]], [[When Trees Attack|Angry Molesting Tree]], [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|Giant Snake]], [[Evil Dead|Deadites]], [[Mummy]], [[Kill Bill|The Bride]], [[Scary Scarecrows|The Scarecrow Folk]], [[Snowlems|Snow]][[Jack Frost (1997 film)|man]], [[Bat Out of Hell|Doombat]], [[Our Vampires Are Different|Vampires]], [[An Arm and a Leg|Dismemberment Goblins]], [[The Fair Folk|Sugarplum Fairy]], [[Our Mermaids Are Different|Merman]], [[Re-Animator|The Reanimated]], [[Unicorn]], Huron, [[Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti|Sasquatch, Yeti]], [[Wendigo]], [[Creepy Doll|Dolls]], [[Deadly Doctor|The Doctors]], [[Hillbilly Horrors|The Redneck Torture Family]], [[All Hallow's Eve|Jack O'Lantern]], [[Our Giants Are Bigger|Giant]], [[Creepy Twins|Twins]] and Kevin (who, per [[Word of God]], is [[Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon|a sweet, harmless looking guy who will exsanguinate you in seconds]]).
** Other monsters seemingly not mentioned on the whiteboard, but spotted throughout the film, include a [[Giant Spider|man-sized tarantula]], a [[Our Ghosts Are Different|ghostly woman]], a quartet of [[The Strangers|masked figures]], some manner of [[Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods|giant cephalopod]], a [[Torture Technician|medieval torturer]], a [[Mechanical Monster|scorpion-like automaton with a buzzsaw for a stinger]], something terrible that [[Ceiling Cling|crawls toward the camera on the ceiling]], a [[Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl]], a dead [[King Kong]]-esque [[Kaiju]] seen on a monitor, a [[Creepy Child]] whom a guard tries to escape by [[First Encounter Assault Recon|dragging himself along the floor]], and [[Hellraiser|Fornicus]], Lord of Bondage and Pain (though he may be the "Hell Lord" on the whiteboard). And finally, there's {{spoiler|[[Eldritch Abomination|The Ancient Ones]]}}.
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: The movie is exceedingly fond of making hilarious jokes instants before gruesome events, and vice-versa.
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]:
* [[Necessarily Evil]]: The Controllers and the Director are this, especially the latter (the former have grown desensitized over time
* [[Negated Moment of Awesome]]: {{spoiler|Curt attempts to jump a canyon in a motorbike in order to get help, but only succeeds in smashing into the
* [[Nested Mouths]]:
* [[Never Trust a Trailer]]: {{spoiler|It's a [[Deconstructive Parody]] of horror films. It's advertised as a straight horror film.}} Ironically, this is one of the few films where it could be argued that this is ''exactly'' the mindset the viewer should have before watching the film.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: Overlaps with [[Pyrrhic Victory]]. {{spoiler|Our heroes have dismantled the controllers' base and escaped being killed for the [[Eldritch Abomination|Ancient Ones]]...so they can be killed ''by'' the Ancient Ones (along with the rest of humanity) now the ritual's broken and they've returned to Earth. Whee?}}
* [[Nietzsche Wannabe]] Marty {{spoiler|and Dana by the end.}}
* [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot]]: {{spoiler|Zombie Redneck Torture Family, among many others.}}
* [[Nothing Is Scarier]]:
* [[Noodle Incident]]:
**
** The US branch has a nigh-spotless record marred only by 1998, when the Chemical Department screwed up. No further elaboration is made, giving rise to fan theories that it's a possible [[Take That]] to a particular horror film released on that year.
* [[Not So Above It All]]: Lin tries to present herself as distanced from the "clowning" behavior of Sitterson and Hadley, such as their organizing the office betting pool {{spoiler|about which horror scenario the kids will incur}}. But this doesn't fool Hadley, who, after asking whether Truman is placing a bet, simply reaches out wordlessly in Lin's direction. Lin sheepishly stuffs some money and her prediction into his hand.
* [[Offscreen Moment of Awesome]]: {{spoiler|"I had to disembowel that guy with a trowel."}}
* [[Off the Rails]]:
* [[Oh Crap]]:
* [[One Last Smoke]]:
* [[One-Scene Wonder]]: Because if there's anyone who knows how to deal with unimaginable horrors, it is
* [[The Only One]]: Averted. The obvious one here is the Japan branch's work with the schoolgirls, but considering the dozen of other operations we're given glimpses of, there are quite a few other stories going on in the periphery of this one.
* [[Only a Flesh Wound]]:
* [[Only Sane Man]]: Marty, who keeps cautioning the group against actions like reading the mysterious Latin. His pot-smoking has made him [[Properly Paranoid]] as well as resistant to the mind-altering chemicals used by the villains.
* [[Our Zombies Are Different]]: {{spoiler|In fact, "Pain-
* [[Paint the Town Red]]: The aftermath of "The Carnage"
* [[Pet the Dog]]: [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]]. {{spoiler|Sitterson and Hadley spend most of the movie manipulating the [[Main Characters]] into meeting their gory ends. When it looks like everyone but Dana has died and their job is done, Hadley starts to comment how he's actually rooting for Dana to survive after all the torment they've put her through, but he doesn't even finish that sentence before breaking out the tequila and declaring it party time. What follows is a big office party with everyone having a good time and congratulating themselves, paying no attention as Dana gets savaged by a zombie in the background.}}
Line 153:
* [[Punch Clock Villain]]: Every character responsible for operations (with exception to The Director) have shades of this. Bonus points for Truman, who makes a point of being aware of this. The fact that they're doing it to save the world each year explains why they're otherwise normal people.
* [[Purple Prose]]: Mordecai's phone call. "Cleanse them. Cleanse the world of their ignorance and sin. Bathe them in the crimson of -- [[Sophisticated As Hell|am I on speakerphone?]]"
* [[Railroading]]: Hadley and Sitterson resort to this with
* [[Really Gets Around]]:
* [[The Reveal]]: Several.
**
**
** And then the ultimate reveal:
* [[Scary Scarecrows]]: {{spoiler|Truman is savaged by a gang of evil scarecrows.}}
* [[Schmuck Bait]]: The cellar isn't just this, it's ''filled'' with these.
* [[Side Bet]]: The scientists bet on
* [[Shout-Out]]:
** ''[[Angel]]'': The symbol on the floor and the one on the controllers' talismans sure looks like the Circle of the Black Thorn . . .
Line 171:
** ''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien]]'': On a monitor during "The Carnage" you can see the foot of a Xenomorph advance towards a cowering woman, the same way the shot happened in another movie Sigourney Weaver was in. (Hint: It's Alien)
** The third act is full of shout outs to a bevy of horror films from recent years, among the more generic zombies and [[Giant Spiders]] are some doll-masked [[The Strangers|strangers]], a [[Left 4 Dead|Boomer]], a torturer in a mask and leather apron straight from [[Hostel]] and the scarecrows that tear apart {{spoiler|Truman}} are actually from the 80's B-movie [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096046/ of the same name], they even get taken out the same way.
** ''[[Carrie]]'': The very end,
** The shifting square containment cells might be a shout out to [[Cube]].
** On one of the television monitors, we can see a ''[[King Kong]]'' expy lying on the ground dead.
Line 180:
* [[Shoot the Dog]]: {{spoiler|Dana comes close to doing this when she strongly considers killing Marty to prevent [[The End of the World as We Know It]].}}
* [[Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Trailer]]: {{spoiler|Sigourney Weaver.}}
* [[Slashers Prefer Blondes]]: Enforced as
* [[Smart People Know Latin]]: Played very deliberately. There is literally nothing to establish Holden as the Smart Guy except that he wears glasses and suddenly remembers enough high school Latin to decipher the incantation. The only reason he's The Scholar is because the controllers decided he is.
* [[Spanner in the Works]]: {{spoiler|Marty, the Fool, had the audacity to survive when he was supposed to die. [[Deconstructed Trope|This is not as much of a good thing as it sounds.]]}}
Line 187:
* [[The Stoner]]: One of the protagonists. Interestingly, {{spoiler|since the Chem department gave him the wrong weed, his drug-use makes him immune to the pheromones, making him immune to the enforced genre-blindness.}}
* [[Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl]]: What a classroom of Japanese students are shown contending with.
* [[Stupidity-Inducing Attack]]:
* [[Taking You with Me]]:
** {{spoiler|Truman blows himself and a bunch of scarecrows up with a grenade. Still doesn't save Hadley, Sitterson and Lin.}}
**
* [[Targeted Human Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|The sacrifices have to fit certain archetypes for the ritual to work. Amusingly many of them do have elements of the archetypes required, but not the ones they are manipulated into. For example Curtis is a smart guy with an in-depth knowledge of Russian philosophy and a full Sociology scholarship, but he's "the athlete." Holden, on the other hand, has "the best hands on the team" by Curtis's
* [[Those Two Bad Guys]]: Hadley and Sitterson.
* [[Torture Cellar]]: The Black Room.
* [[Trailers Always Spoil]]: Played straight with {{spoiler|Marty's apparent "death"}}. The {{spoiler|double-bluff}} structure of the film averts this trope; the trailers spoil that there's science behind the magic, but not {{spoiler|the magic behind the science}}.
* [[Turned Against Their Masters]]: "The Carnage"
* [[Unexplained Recovery]]:
* [[Virgin Sacrifice]]: The controllers regret that they can no longer just toss a girl into a volcano as a sacrifice, referencing this trope. They now have to go by stock horror film cliches, which ironically often leaves the virgin [[Final Girl]] alive.
* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]:
* [[What Might Have Been]]: An entire ''betting board'' of in-universe examples.
* [[White Mask of Doom]]: Briefly seen in the [[Creepy Basement|basement]], then again on some of the participants in "The Carnage".
|