“Cabin the Woods” vs. Bad Taste

Really America?

I’ve been waiting for Cabin in the Woods to come out for months just so I could finally talk about the film with people who have seen it.  As much as I enjoyed The Hunger Games, I figured this was the week it fell out of the number one spot, replaced by one terrifically inventive horror film.

I had the opportunity to watch a sneak peek of the film at Butt-Numb-a-Thon back in December and  since then, I’ve been encouraging anyone and everyone to see the movie.  I’ve also been telling them to avoid watching any trailers because the plot is so convluted and so clever that the first viewing will be so much more fun if you go in with a blank slate.

Even if you watch the trailer (that gives away too much) or read the “spoiler-free” reviews (that still give away too much),  the movie is a fantastic film.  I had hoped that a lot of people would realize that.

Sadly, The Hunger Games stayed on top.  If Cabin in the Woods had come in second, I could deal with that.  As I said, I liked The Hunger Games.

What happened, though was that the film in second place was The Three Stooges.

Full disclosure here, I didn’t watch The Three Stooges.

I have, however, seen the trailer.  Have you seen the trailer?  Here, watch it:

The film has Snooki in it!  And they put that fact right in the trailer as if it’s a selling point!

That movie made more money than Cabin in the Woods.

Come on, America!  What is wrong with you?  Somehow this movie couldn’t even draw the people who will go to every single Paranormal Activity movie.

I’m not bitching at anyone I know because I’m pretty sure almost everyone I know went to Cabin in the Woods if they saw a movie this weekend.

The rest of America engaged in a collective failure to watch a really good movie.

It isn’t as if The Three Stooges or The Hunger Games blew away the box office either.  Hunger Gamesbarely topped 20 Million.  The top spot was there for the taking – especially given that there is a legion of rabid genre fans who will, seemingly, line up for any horror film just because they love horror that much.

Apparently, those are the only people who went.

The next time fanboys start bitching about a Michael Bay helmed Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles film, I’m going to hold up Cabin in the Woods and say “see?  This is why Michael Bay keeps getting to make crap films and Joss Whedon has trouble making Wonder Woman.”

It isn’t Michael Bay’s fault that he makes shit movies people want to see.  He makes shit movies because that’s what people want to see.  A satirical horror film was never going to make as much money as the latest unintelligible giant robot explosion fest but it really should have done better than The Three Stooges!

Keep all of this in mind the next time you go to a movie theatre and see a really good film because it was an accident.  Studios want the next Transformers, not the next Cabin in the Woods.  That is why Michael Bay gets piles of money to play with.  As awesome as I hope The Avengers will be, it’s box office success is a function of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor.  The Joss Whedon faithful will not make it a success.

We – and by “we” I mean “the moviegoing public” – get exactly the movies we deserve.  Every now and again, we get better.  We ought to celebrate and reward those films.  Sometimes we do.  Most of the time we don’t.

So please – let me beg one thing of you.  If you haven’t seen Cabin in the Woods yet, go see it.  Give the film some legs.  If it can’t beat The Three Stooges on opening weekend, try to help it beat the film every other weekend they are both in theatres.

It is not the greatest film ever made.  But it is a whole hell of a lot better than a 14 Million dollar opening weekend.

And sight unseen, I can tell you it beats the shit out of any movie featuring Snooki.