Double Feature Review

I went out last night with the New Lady In My Life for a double feature: Cabin in the Woods and The Five-Year Engagement.  We were in a movie mood and figured if after Cabin had ended we'd stay for a show of the second film.  We were still up for it, and so we stayed.

So today we have a special two-fer movie review!

First, The Cabin in the Woods.

This movie flat out rocked.  Unfortunately it's so dense in its plot that I can't talk about too much without spoiling most of the movie's surprises, so I can't go into any great detail from that angle.  However, it's well worth the price of admission and I highly recommend it.

The film opens innocuously enough with five college students about to embark on a weekend getaway.  To a cabin.  In the woods.  Only one of their faces is recognizable at all - Chris Helmsworth, of Star Trek and Thor. The kids eventually find a creepy old guy who runs a gas station on their way to their cabin, and he gives them a quite ominous warning.

All this sounds horribly cliche, but that's sort of the point.  Again, I can't go into further detail without giving away crucial spoilers; you just have to see it for yourself.

But then weird stuff happens, like we find out there's some kind of shield covering the forest area around the cabin.  Two guys played by Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins work in a control room setting for most of the film, and feel like they're from an entirely different film until they are ultimately linked to the kids on their weekend getaway.  And there's some really bizarre stuff found in the basement in the cabin....

And of course, people start dying.  In really gruesome and bloody ways.

The climax of the film is so over the top in its violence and blood, I had to marvel at director Drew Goddard's attempts at making it all work.  It's a ballet of blood, like Goddard used his film and turned it into some twisted version of Phantom of the Opera.  What's so unique about the film from start to finish was how it paid homage to past horror classics such as Alien, The Thing, The Evil Dead, Saw, Hellraiser, and many others (that may have been a giveaway on my part listing some of those films).  The film adds cliches found in many of those films and manages to simultaneously mock and respect them.

I am extremely picky when it comes to horror films because so many of them are simplistic in their types of horror.  I have no patience or interest in the likes of Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street because they exist solely to serve the purpose of their villains.  I find horror films like Silence of the Lambs or Seven much more satisfying, and while Cabin in the Woods isn't a psychological horror film like those latter two films, it's still a superior horror film.  There's a real payoff to why everything is happening, and when the audience finally understands the big reveal, it's well worth the wait.  Highly recommended.

Now, on to Five-Year Engagement.

I'm a big Jason Segel fan.  He can be a small supporting player in films like Knocked Up and I Love You, Man to being the star in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  And I love his writing, considering he either co-wrote or solely wrote most of the movies he's been in.  Mad props to you, Jason.

The Five-Year Engagement isn't a bad movie by any means of the sort.  In fact, there are a bunch of really funny lines and moments in the movie.  It's just the equivalent of cotton candy; it's completely forgettable once the movie is over.

I'm sitting here trying to remember any particular line in the movie that I laughed at and remember.  Thing is, I can't.  I have to go on IMDB.com to find any quotes posted on there from the movie to jog my memory. 

The film opens with Segel's character Tom taking his girlfriend Violet, played by Emily Blunt, out on New Year's Eve for their one year anniversary.  He surprises her with an engagement ring, and they start working on planning their wedding.  The problem is, they never get very far with their plans because of life getting in the way of their future.

I've never gotten close to the point of getting engaged and/or planning a wedding, but I have enough friends who are married who can attest to how crazy such a time is.  That's a concept that's ripe with comedic opportunity, and one that hasn't been done time and again in other movies.

Tom and Violet have to deal with obstacles like other pregnancies, job offers, family deaths, and the like.  All that is funny - even the deaths, oddly enough.  Somehow, despite all that opportunity, it's still a very ordinary film.  It isn't anything close to being as memorable as The Hangover or Bridesmaids, which is a real shame given the talent in the film.  Still, like I said in the beginning it isn't a bad movie at all.  I just wouldn't rush out to see it.