The Cabin in the Woods (2011, released 2012) First, a disclaimer, and somewhat of a spoiler warning (so if you haven't seen the flick yet and plan on it, don't read the rest. But do come back later and see what I've got to say): This is not a film review per se, it's an interpretation. 'Cabin in the woods,' 'lodge in the woods,' 'castle in the woods,' 'shrine in the woods,' these have been an ongoing synchronistic motif (in both dreams and waking life) around us lately (granted, it pertains to personal practice, so I'm just saying it to get it out there), so when we heard the flick The Cabin in the Woods (watch here or here) was available on demand, we figured, what the heck, why not check it out. I haven't watched a movie in I don't know how long, but it seemed pertinent due to cosmic communications. The movie boasted of its unconventional approach to the typical horror film. We knew it was supposed to be a novel twist on the genre. Luckily we really had very little clue as to any of the details about the movie. As we watched we definitely felt the comedic vibe of the film. However it wasn't the tired slapstick parody type humor made so popular by the Scary Movie series. The dual locations had a sort of sci-fi feel and the narrative encompassed many aspects of traditional blockbuster horror films from The Evil Dead to Reanimator and everything between. As the film progressed it became clear that the 2012 phenomenon was driving the story content and imbued the film with a familiar archetypal mystique. It was a story about blood sacrifice and martyrdom being at the very heart of continued human existence as a species on this planet. The paradigm of martyrdom is so thoroughly and completely part of human collective thought (both unconscious and conscious) that one would be hard pressed to find many films that don't follow "the martyr saves the world" formula. Superheroes must give everything up to save the world, heroes and heroines eventually sacrifice themselves for the good of all, over and over and over again in mythology, literature, art, cinema, song, etc. It's completely and entirely believed by us that sacrifice is meritorious, virtuous, and heroic. Call it a dip in the timewave, the movie overturns the entire paradigm. In the end, the two people who could save the world by their self-sacrifice to the chthonic, Cthulhu-type gods decide that the time of the gods has come, that the human race need not continue to be saved under conditions of perpetual sacrifice and martyrdom. In short, the message at the end of the movie, is that the Mayan human-sacrifice idea to perpetuate humanity, which is a still-current eon through line of Habit (alive and well in the christo-islamic paradigm), is becoming chaotic and dangerously passe; if there is a collective which needs maintenance under such conditions, there is something seriously wrong with the collective itself. The whole idea's got to go. And of course, those who are pulling the strings are the corpocrats, the corporate cogs who do the bidding of authorities higher than they to perpetuate the "machine." In essence, the real monsters are not the monsters per se in the movie, but those reptilian who do the bidding of the gods, in cold blood, without an ounce of compassion. If you find the message to be complex, rife with philosophical problems, and difficult to digest, they're only because of entrenchment in the historical Habit of the martyr paradigm. Very rare, very rare, do watch the flick.
