I think I’ve shared before that when the readings are Freud, I have a hard time getting through the reading. With this being a bonus section, I didn’t even try. I did read the other article and will try to bring in some thoughts on post modernism in these films.
Both films involved spooky looking cabins. Any time there is a group of young people, often college students, having a getaway weekend at an isolated cabin, bad things are going to happen. In Cabin in the Woods, a group of college students were going to one of their uncle’s newly purchased cabin. In Tucker and Dale Versus Evil, a group of college students are going camping for the weekend in an isolated area; while Tucker and Dale were going to Tucker’s newly purchased vacation cabin.
In Cabin in the Woods, we see the similarities to the slasher films. The group of friends seemed like an odd mix to be spending a weekend together, but from the time they got to the cabin, I expected the sexually promiscuous girl to be the first one killed. And just as expected, she was the first to go. It was also obvious that Dana, the good girl, would be the “final girl”. As the group was traveling in the RV they went through the tunnel and we saw a glimpse of the force field around the area they were driving into. The first thing I thought of when I saw the force field was one of the Hunger Games films. There was also a parallel with people on the outside manipulating what occurred inside the force field but those in the “game” also made decisions that affected what happened. The staff in the laboratory treated it like a game, taking bets on which kind of monster would be released and manipulating their actions by releasing drugs to affect their behavior. There was also humor worked in throughout the film that blurred the lines of genre. Also, there was a part where it showed the people at the lab watching what was happening on a big screen in the lab like it was a TV show. At the end, it was ironic that all the monsters were released on lab staff and killed them. And even more so that it was Patience Buckner, that the college students “selected” when they read her diary, was the one to kill the Director.
In Tucker and Dale versus Evil, we see the highbrow college students heading out for a weekend retreat and they run into uneducated hillbillies, Tucker and Dale. As they reach their destinations in close proximity to each other, the college students go skinny dipping while the hillbillies go fishing. The students see them as creepy and scary and are quick to suspect them of being kidnappers and murderers. As a contradiction to the hillbilly stereotype, Dale is actually tenderhearted and smart…as Allie points out to him that being uneducated isn’t the same as being dumb. The deaths in this film are more like slapstick humor with students impaling themselves while running in fear when no one is really chasing them or accidentally getting shot. Tucker and Dale thought they had some kind of suicide pact. Near the end, we see the evil “monster” fall from an upstairs room and expect him to be dead, but reminiscent of Michael Myers, he is gone when the police arrive. In what seems to be very unrealistic, the hillbilly Dale ends up with the final girl Alli. The film ends with the reporters sneaking into the cabin to film and Chad shows up while they are filming.