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Reviews
The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Insults the intelligence of the viewer...or perhaps...relies upon their unintelligence...
With so much hype around the originality of this film, and worse, coming with high critical acclaim, it had me bursting with anticipation.This was arguably the worst film I've ever had the misfortune to watch. Drawn in by critics remarking how "clever" it was and how it "really turns the horror genre on its head", I was desperate to see it. Eminem once released an album where he mocked anyone who was stupid enough to part with money to buy it. The same kind of cynicism pervades The Cabin in the Woods.
It's a story about a group of 5 college kids, who, unbeknownst to them, fit five categories of personality type. They think they are going away for the weekend to a remote mountain cabin, owned by a cousin. The cabin, and the area around it, is an environment, controlled in every respect, by a covert organisation, located deep under the ground beneath it. Everything taking place above ground is watched by the people controlling such factors as temperature, lighting and even latent air pheromone concentration. Get the picture?
In essence it's a movie within a movie and the underground organisation is watching reality TV. But to what end? The department work on behalf of some Gods who need these kids to die, one by one, and in a specific order. While some factors are being controlled, the kids make their own choices, outside of the control of the "puppeteers". If these kids don't die, or they don't die in the right order, the Gods get angry and could, indeed, destroy the world if their sacrificial needs are not met.
How exactly do the kids die? No less than a family of zombies rising up from the ground, proceeding to wreak havoc, killing three of the five kids. At this point my heart truly sank. Zombies? Puh-lease! If zombies weren't enough, the film would not be complete if there was no mention made of the veritable menagerie of beasts and mythical creatures held captive in glass cages. When pandemonium ensues on accidental release of them all, it comes as no surprise that a bloodbath results. In a quirkily humorous moment, a unicorn gores a man repeatedly against a wall with its horn!
More shocking is an actress with a respectable reputation appearing in a small role towards the end, Sigourney Weaver. What made her think this was a good film to appear in? Her moment is fleeting, nevertheless, bemusing.
This film is marketed as a spoof, like the Scream series. What it succeeds in doing is slapping it's audience in the face. Yes, it's a spoof but it's not funny and it is anything but original. It's cynical and boring. It's as if writers Joss Whedon and writer-director Drew Goddard thought, "You like a horror film? We know who you are, what you like and this is what you deserve!" It really feels like a hoax played on the audience stupid enough to pay money to see it. It's so bad, you can't even call it mediocre. For most of it's short ninety minutes, I could not wait for it to end.
The only really clever thing about it is the marketing! Absolutely atrocious!
White Noise (2005)
Supernatural horror with loose ends
As much as the beginning of the film had promise - happily married couple are destroyed by the wife dying in an apparently tragic accident - the fact that the grieving husband was receiving messages from his dead wife through white noise (reminiscent of Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist) seemed like a suspenseful plot until we understand it is to help other people who are about to die.
I wanted his wife's communications to be about the exact nature of her own demise and that it had been far more sinister than it first appeared - which it was - but not in the way we want it to be. The fact that she was newly pregnant played out to virtually no significance.
Unfortunately, there are too many unanswered questions and loose ends that leave the viewer with an overwhelming sense of frustration.
I marked it down for being somewhat unsatisfied by it, while marking it up more for creating genuine fear and suspense.
Melancholia (2011)
A dark, surreal, though captivating and evocative, doomsday film
You know that feeling. The films starts, it's confusing, irritating and you consider giving up already. I imagine much of the audience watching Melancholia at the Cannes Film Festival felt that way. Quirkiness, however, is the staple for director-writer Lars Von Trier.
The movie proper begins with Part 1: Justine. Justine (Kirsten Dunst) has just got married to Michael (Alexander Skarsgård). En route to their wedding reception at her sister's vast countryside manor, they are delayed by the car getting stuck. They arrive in good spirits, carefree and oblivious. Dunst is in her element playing Justine. We have seen similar frivolity from her in Elizabethtown and The Virgin Suicides.
Her overwrought sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), having planned the day's proceedings with military precision, greets and berates them for their lateness. Justine is selfish – she insists on visiting the horses before coming in to the reception and is frequently absent throughout the evening to sleep, bathe and have meaningless sex with a stranger she just met. Claire reminds Justine that she promised not to "make a scene". Not much is given away.
Justine is depressed. She is not well. Her utter despair, loneliness and helplessness seep gradually into our bones. While Dunst is a natural playing the happy- go-lucky girl, she struggles to convince us that she is anything more than just self-centred.
In an attempt to re-engage with her, Michael presents her with a photograph of an apple orchard. It represents hope and their future together and to cheer her up in moments of despair and loneliness. She gratefully accepts and cherishes it, then discards it on the sofa when she leaves. Suffice to say, she is not focused on him, nor the wedding and it is no surprise when he leaves, suitcase in tow, in the early hours of the morning. Before he leaves, she earnestly states, "Well, what did you expect?"
A night for upsets, she insults Jack, her boss, tantamount to resignation. Her parents are a treat worth mention, played by John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling. Her mother is brash and acerbic and speaks out of turn when her crackpot father begins his speech. Hurt and Rampling aren't in the film for long but we see, while withholding somewhat for appearance sake, that they are intensely flawed and the source of much family dysfunction.
Part 2 is about Claire. Oh, and the end of the world. Previously depicted as uptight and rigid, we learn she is disturbed. She is nervous and neurotic. And not without reason. A planet, Melancholia, that has been "nestling behind the sun" has somehow steered a course orbiting close to the earth. John, her husband, who is a wealthy landowner, has an apparently intimate understanding of astrophysics with complex telescopic equipment to match. He has repeatedly undertaken complex calculations and assures her that Melancholia will travel close, but not collide with Earth. She doesn't believe him.
Charlotte Gainsbourg's Claire is finely observed. Her intensity is understated, her nervousness and ticks are at times so minute you might miss them. Her fear is palpable and her biggest is for the safety of her child, her son, Leo.
Justine has hit rock bottom with her depression and comes to live with them to recuperate. While John gets extra supplies in – lamps, fuel, food - should there be a "close call" with Melancholia, Claire is more pessimistic, buying medication that will put them all into a permanent sleep, if required. Justine is resigned to the end of the world. She says it will happen as she "sees things". Is this the source for all her pain and depression? An overwhelming and hypersensitivity to all the world around her? An information overload that she cannot cope with? Is she autistic? She has an inexplicable understanding of numbers, incredulously.
The predicted moment of danger arrives, passing by without incident. The rising of the vast Melancholia, the blue planet, in the sky, is truly wonderful to behold. Wonder and excitement turn to panic, however, the following day when John realises something is wrong. Relaxing on the patio, Claire notices John has gone missing and discovers him dead from an overdose in the stables. His suicide is the ultimate selfish act – he has taken the entire supply of Claire's secret stash.
When Claire realises Melancholia will collide she desperately tries to get away, unsuccessfully, with Leo. Where to? She is desperate to protect him. The getaway golf buggy breaks down and she walks back, in the hail and rain, exhausted, carrying Leo. Justine sits on a wall, playfully dangling her legs, watching calmly, indifferently, as her pained sister struggles up the hill. It's painful to watch. Justine and her nephew collect sticks to build a magic cave that will protect them. Leo naively believes they will be safe there. Justine is oddly, peacefully reconciled to their fate. Claire is terrified.
They sit, waiting, in the wigwam-like structure and the background hum becomes overwhelmingly loud as the planet nears.
The penultimate shot is of the immense blue planet engulfing the horizon. We have a sense of nature being so much bigger than ourselves and that we are small and insignificant to control it. There is no message of hope or seizing the moment, just despair and pointlessness, perhaps a reflection of the mental struggles of Von Trier while he made this film.
It is not a feel good film but it is beautifully made and you won't forget it. The images will be seared into your brain, continuing to haunt for many years to come.