Is The Cabin In The Woods A Good Movie
Rode Neagle
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (& associated TV series) and The Cabin in the Woods could at first glance easily be in the same universe. In particular the organization that runs the Cabin is very reminiscent of 'The Initiative' from Buffy Season 4.
Dana and Marty accept that it might be better for another species to take humanity's place if this is the price of its continued existence. They share a final joint as an Ancient One finally stirs, destroying the Facility.
The main inconsistency is that the Initiative appears to have proceeded largely from a state of ignorance about the supernatural world, and been an attempt by (some part of) the US government to acquire more information about it.
Another aspect that sits ill with the Buffyverse setting is that in the Buffyverse, young people are brutally murdered all the time. It would probably be unnecessary to set up elaborate settings like the cabin, given that the organisation could simply set something up in a hellmouth area.
A third aspect, related to the last, is that the point of the organisation, and its rituals, is to keep humanity safe. Part of the mission clearly involves keeping contained huge numbers of monsters. In the Buffyverse, monsters are not contained at all.
In the buffyverse Buffy always saves the world. In the cabin in the woods, the world ends. Therefore its not the buffyverse. If you saw a lone figure leaping at the emerging old one in the final scene then maybe!
2) Vengence demons, and similar demons, are free roaming multi-dimensional entities in the Buffyverse who have an investment in having people to serve, and people to torture. The Ancients destroying the world doesn't work for them, and they would attempt to interfere, probably if all else fails, involving Buffy and Willow, because Buffy is formed as the original demon repression device. Stopping the ancients would be her job, and the demons who like having people around to play with would help her. There was no sign of that, but plenty of opportunity.
3) The arrangement with the ancient ones would have been known by other mystical communities in the BuffyVerse, like the witches that trained Willow, and the old lady with the Glottal Stop. The latter is part of a group who accurately predicted millenia before everything necessary to stop a problem so dire they had to predict it millenia ago and prepare for that day over all that time. They wouldn't have missed something like the Ancients, nor neglected the danger.
4) Willow, having gone fully dark, and then in recovery, linking to the entire earth and its living systems, would have percieved and understood the existence and arrangements for the great evil. In the BuffyVerse, the great evil is the first evil. If the Ancients existed in the Buffyverse, they were under the first evil. The first evil did not arrange for the ancients to come bitch slap Buffy, she used a wingman and a bunch of old blue vampires. If the ancient's pit existed in the BuffyVerse, the first would have attracted the slayers to the cabin and used them to feed the ancients, or lured them there to let them stop the organization, resulting in the end of the world. Season 7 would have ended badly.
I think the fact there is no direct/indirect link is more a ploy to make us Buffy fans speculate. I for one would LOVE to believe it is in the Buffyverse and therefore do. I think maybe some time in the future, where the Initiative has had time to expand and grow. Also, if there was a link, would that not isolate the people that haven't watched Buffy? Leave it to our imaginations I say!
I think it could be Wolfram &Hart just because Whedon obviously loved the idea of them existing, and hey, look at it like this: the apocalypse in the Buffyverse always seemed contained in some weird "pocket area/dimension" where the outside "real" world wasn't AS affected. Or some shit like that. There was just a lot of "coincedences" that are there with a wink and a nod.
The Ancient Ones are described the same way The Old Ones are in the Buffyverse. They have the same origins and the same function. In the comics you see them and they are roughly to scale with the hand in Cabin.
The rules of magic/tech are consistent. Any of the monsters in Cabin could've existed in the Buffyverse and vice versa. In The Cabin they state that the horrors they use are real. If the writers wanted Cabin to exist in a different universe, this would be where they could draw the line.
The unnamed corporation is Wolfram and Hart, not The Initiative, because at the beginning it is stated that they are not in the military. Wolfram and Hart has the international capabilities, the magic/tech know-how and the motive. In Angel, one of the Old Ones says that "The wolf, the ram and the hart" were weak when the Old Ones were in power. They of all organizations would want to keep the Ancient Ones at Bay and torture humans for their amusement. It's a win/win for them.
I pretty much assumed the Cabin is in the Buffyverse. Apart from a few actors playing different characters, I see no evidence to the contrary. What's more, they made it clear that vampires exist in this world [on the betting board], but then just as consciously don't show us any vampires. If they had shown the vampires, wouldn't they have had to have made a direct Buffy reference?
It's one of those places where job opportunities are limited, many struggle with substance abuse, and people are always poking into each other's business. You can't go anywhere without being recognized or seeing people you know.
My dad frequented the farm growing up. He daydreamed of building a cabin there while he chased critters and watched the sky. The land had hills, steep ridges, several creeks, small clearings (open areas in the forest), wildlife, and trees as far as his eyes could see.
He started working and saving from a young age, and quickly developed a knack for building and fixing things. His skills led him into many jobs over the years: landscaper, painter, handyman, bartender, waiter, construction worker, electrician, and foreman.
Building the cabin certainly didn't happen in the course of weeks or months. It took years and is still technically unfinished. But he got enough of it built to live there during his 20s and in the early years of married life.
Whenever he had enough money saved up, he'd tackle a new home improvement project. There were endless things he dreamed of building or enhancing. We also spent many weekends there hiking, collecting moss and pet rocks, searching for salamanders, watching the deer, and star gazing.
When it came time for me to start kindergarten, my parents wanted a stronger school system. So we moved to a central Virginian city with 40,000 people. It felt huge considering it was 20X the population.
Our new home was about a 2.5-hour drive from the farm and my grandparents. We were still relatively close by. But, it became quite a trek to go back and forth often. The cabin grew dusty and the clearings in the forest quickly filled with waist-high grasses, wildflowers, and snakes.
Fast forward to my dad's mid-40s and my parents got divorced. My mom kept our small city home to finish raising me in, and my dad moved back to his cabin in the woods. And he's lived there ever since!
I don't plan to retire in a cabin in the woods given we are used to city living and our children like their current schools. Sure I love nature and being in the outdoors. But from a lifestyle perspective, I'm too attached to technology, conveniences, and modern amenities.
Below are some of the day-to-day realities that my dad has lived with in his atypical retirement lifestyle. Keep in mind his circumstances certainly don't apply to every cabin in the woods out there.
And sure, with enough time, money, and resources, you could live in a cabin with all sorts of bells and whistles that he doesn't have. But, perhaps that would defeat the whole purpose of living in the wilderness!
My dad is very much unplugged. Fortunately he likes it like that. He hasn't had cable TV for the last 25 years, nor does he have a land line telephone or WiFi. He doesn't even have dial-up internet! But he can listen to NPR or get newspapers from the grocery store.
If my dad does want to go out to eat, it requires about a 35-40 minute drive one-way. And the choices over the years have been limited to establishments like Arby's, Cracker Barrel, and a very Americanized Chinese buffet restaurant.
Wildlife is a part of everyday life if you live in a cabin in the woods like my dad does. He regularly sees deer, wild turkeys, foxes, coyotes, bob cats, raccoons, black bears, rattlesnakes, opossums, skunks, bats, and a lot more.
His dining room window acts like his TV. He often sits there for hours just looking out the window waiting to see what will walk or fly by. He's even befriended some of the animals, mainly the deer. But usually he just waits and watches nature's free entertainment.
It wasn't until I become an adult that I learned my dad is quite the marksman. It's actually saved his life on more than one occasion. When you're in the wild, unexpected circumstances can arise suddenly that require swift action to save your life. You need smart instincts and quick reflexes.
Mosquitos buzzing in your ears at night, gnats attacking your face, spiders of all sorts, ants, biting horseflies, aphids, you name it. You will feel like you're being eaten alive outside if you forget the bug spray.
What's probably the biggest challenge mentally is the high amount of social isolation that comes with retiring in a cabin in the woods. My dad had a dog for about 14 years which was huge for companionship. But now it's just him by himself.
He's always been a rather solitary person. So the perpetual quiet doesn't bother him very often. One perk is rarely gets sick because he isn't in regular contact with folks except when he's running errands.
But not being able to reliably make calls from his cabin certainly makes things hard socially. Loneliness really creeps up on days when he doesn't see any wildlife. He admits to talking to the animals for company, especially the deer, some of whom he's bonded with.
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