Posts Tagged ‘Joss Whedon’
Posted by Bryan in Latest News, Movies on April 9th, 2010
Details surrounding the new Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard horror flick, The Cabin in the Woods, have been notoriously hard to come by. The most that the filmmakers have been willing to divulge is that the film represents an unusual twist on the familiar horror format.
Unfortunately, the wait to finally gain some insight into the film was achingly prolonged when distributors announced that its February 2010 release date would be pushed back a full year in order to upscale the film to the 3-D format. Thankfully, although its creators have been mum about plot specifications, actors always love to talk. One of the film’s stars, Amy Acker (Angel, Alias), let slip at this past weekend’s WonderCon in San Fransisco that Cabin in the Woods is a creature feature.
Reported by SciFi Wire, the actress was quoted as saying, “There’s a lot of scary monsters,” in a group interview while promoting the upcoming ABC series, Happy Town. “It’s a scary movie.”
So while that doesn’t give you a whole ton to go on, it at least introduces an intriguing new element. More monsters can never be a bad thing. In other good news, Acker also revealed that the film production process has officially finished, leaving only the 3-D conversion to go.
“I got an e-mail yesterday that it was finished,” Acker said. “The cut is finished, so they’ve got it all, well, ‘in the can’ I guess is what the terminology was.”
While Acker hasn’t seen the cut yet, her showrunners at Happy Town apparently have. “These guys are all friends with Drew from Alias, and they saw it and said that it was awesome,” she said. “So that’s good.”
After letting slip the detail about monsters, Acker chose to play the rest of the interview a bit more coyly. “It is about a cabin in the woods,” Acker confirmed. “You’ve figured it out. Yeah, it’s about a cabin in the woods. It does take from the sort of formula of the horror movie of this group of young kids who go away to a cabin in the woods for the weekend, and everything that happens and what you think is supposed to happen.”
The Cabin in the Woods is due in theaters Jan. 14, 2011.
Posted by Steve in Arts, Latest News, The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on December 22nd, 2009
We here at Famous Monsters really dig www.io9.com, and we think you should, too. If you’re wondering where all the good writers and journalists went, io9.com is a good place to start. Lauren Davis’ recent essay. “Why Great Horror Is Heartbreaking“, approaches Lovecraft’s “Supernatural Horror in Literature” and Chandler’s “The Simple Art Of Murder” as a key reflection on a pop genre. This is strong praise, but we think she’s on to something. See if you agree.
Many thanks to Lauren Davis and Annalee Newitz for permission; reprinted from io9.com.
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Why Great Horror Is Heartbreaking
We’ve spent this week [Halloween 2009 - ed.] talking about horror in all its myriad forms: scary sex scenes, terrible monsters, and mental horrors. But some of the most haunting and terrifying horror stories aren’t merely terrifying; they’re also terribly sad.
I have to confess, it’s very hard for me to watch horror movies. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the occasional scare, and it’s not that I’m worried about ghosts and monsters following home (although I will confess to a mild fear of zombies). No, it’s just that when the body count starts rising, I start feeling, well, sad. I don’t come out of the theater pumping with adrenaline; I’m too distracted thinking about the people who died and the loved ones they’ve left behind.
The plots of several pieces of horror are discussed below, so be warned there may be spoilers.
The movie that really hit this home for me is not a science fiction movie, but Wes Craven’s Scream. In the movie’s opening sequence, Drew Barrymore is terrorized by a knife-wielding serial killer one night while she’s home alone. As the killer is chasing her down, her parents pull up in the driveway. For a brief moment, it looks like she’s saved, but in the next shot, we see the parents, happy from a pleasant evening out, and their daughter pulled down by the killer before she has the chance to cry out for help.
How horrible. It’s a suspenseful moment to be sure, but one that evokes horror more than terror. Horrifying that she was so close to salvation only to meet a brutal end, and horrifying that her parents will find their daughter mutilated on their lawn and spend the rest of their lives wondering what would have happened if they have come home just a little sooner. It’s a scene tinged with more tragedy than terror.
Horror is a genre that picks and pokes at our deepest anxieties. It’s a reminder that we live in an unstable world, and that no matter how careful or good we are, we could at any time be struck with death, disfigurement, or madness. A lot of horror movies appeal to our limbic systems, to that part of our brain that wonders what lurks in the shadows and triggers a happy release of hormone every time someone shouts “Boo!” And there is undeniably an artistry to that, to the sort of jumps and thrills so frightening that, weeks later, you’re still checking under the bed for demons from Hell. But often the horror that still lingers for years afterwards are the ones that play on the less primal — but still very human — fears of losing the ones you love and being left alone in the world.
When Heartbreak Drives the Horror
Horror protagonists don’t always make the best choices. They insult powerful witches, run up the stairs when they should run out the door, and try to capture the man-eating alien instead of killing it. And when Louis Creed buries his son Gage in the Micmac burial ground in Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, we know it’s a bad idea. He knows it’s a bad idea. But he so desperately hopes that he can repair his wounded family that he is willing to make a terrible and utterly wrong decision. And when Gage comes back only to murder his mother, Louis too easily manages to talk himself into burying his wife in the same graveyard.
It should be a forehead-slapping moment, but it’s depressingly relatable. That Gage comes back as an undead monster is pretty horrifying (he did make our list of scariest characters in film), but what’s more horrifying is what grief can drive Louis to do. His grief is so potent, so unbearable that he’s willing to make monsters out of his loved ones in the hope that seeing them again will mend his heart.
It’s an idea that harkens back to WW Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw,” that famed exercise in truly depressing horror. After the Whites receive a wish-granting monkey paw, they wish for money, only to lose their son in an accident and receive compensation for his death. In that moment, they understand the nature of the monkey paw: it grants wishes, but in a perverse way. Still, the husband defers to his wife’s terrible, maddening grief and wishes their son back to life. But, like Louis Creed, Mr. White must make his son dead again — knowing what comes back couldn’t possibly be right — doubling his guilt and grief.
There are reasons why stories like “The Monkey’s Paw” endure, and why its ideas find its way into so many other works of horror. They force us to access our fears of losing those closest to us, asking us how far we would go to keep them with us. Perhaps the most frightening thing about these stories that many of us will face terrible grief in our lives — and perhaps even guilt at the deaths of our loved ones — and we could be capable of making the same terrible decisions as the people in these stories, even if we don’t get the opportunity to act on them.
When Losing Someone Makes Things That Much Worse
Even when grief and loss aren’t the focus of a horror story, a moment of terrible loss can have more impact than even the most terrifying monster. 28 Days Later adds a frightening bit of realism to the zombie apocalypse, but it never forgets that the fear of losing your life is little match for the sadness that comes in a world suffused with death. When Jim discovers that his parents committed suicide in the face of violent death (leaving a note begging him not to wake from his coma), it’s a bright spot of pain in a movie already filled with terror. But when our merry band of survivors becomes something of a family, with Frank playing the wise and protective father, the apocalypse seems survivable, almost manageable. Then Frank becomes infected with the Rage virus, and it’s not just another zombie movie death. It puts a lump in your throat and reminds you that the zombie outbreak isn’t all fun and killing the Infected — it’s actually horribly sad.
This threat of loss adds dimension to other horror movies as well. Take The Ring, a film already terrifying in its J-horror weirdness. That The Ring turns a VHS cassette into an object of terror is incredibly impressive, but it’s when Rachel’s son Aidan watches the tape that the clock really starts ticking. Faced with the death of her son, Rachel must not only save herself, but survive long enough to keep Samara from killing her son as well. It adds a deeper, driving motivation to an already scary movie.
Joss Whedon is perhaps the master of this particular brand of horror. Though the series was filled with man-eating monsters, death in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is often random, senseless, and poignant. Few moments in the show stand out as clearly as Joyce’s death from an aneurysm, or Tara’s from a stray bullet. The central theme in Buffy is that family and friends make life grand, even when your life is filled with mayhem and violence. In such a world, few things are as horrifying as losing part of your family, and such deaths always left the characters unbalanced, even psychotic with grief. Even the show’s most calculated death, Angelus’ slaying of Jenny Calendar, is designed to maximize heartbreak. It’s not enough that Angelus kills her; he also has to place her in Giles’ bed with a trail of roses leading up to it, in a mockery of romantic seduction. And that heartache, far more than fear, drives Giles to hate and try to destroy Angelus.
When Your Loved One Turns Monstrous
This is a staple of vampire and zombie movies, when you find you must destroy the creature wearing your loved one’s face. Buffy tried this in the very first episode, turning Willow and Xander’s friend Jesse bloodsucker and forcing Xander to kill him an episode later. It’s not the strongest instance of this particular trope (I’m not sure if Jesse is even mentioned later in the series), but it’s a solid introduction to the horrible nature of vampires. Zombie movies are stronger in this regard. Even Shaun of the Dead, a movie mostly devoted to the funny side of the undead, goes suddenly tearjerker when we learn Shaun’s mother has been bitten by a zombie. This bit of sadness is then compounded by the ensuing debate over shooting Shaun’s dead mother in the head. Even though everyone knows it has to happen, Shaun can’t bring himself to let it happen, and even the normally logical Liz argues against it. And when his mother inevitably rises from the dead, Shaun is the one who must shoot her body, a shockingly tearful moment from the zombie romantic comedy.
It’s another work from Stephen King, The Shining, that offers a more realistic view on why this concept is so horrifying. Jack Torrance is a man so driven to drink that he gives his soul over to the hotel for alcohol. In the movie, it’s played more as slasher horror, with Jack Nicholson gleefully hunting down his wife and child, but it’s a grim reminder that the people we love could become the people we fear, or that we ourselves might be capable of inflicting terrible harms on our loved ones.
When Hope Is Your Worst Enemy
Few genres are as relentlessly obsessed with death as post-apocalyptic fiction. In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, death abounds; most of the world is dead, bands of rapists and murderers prowl the road, and the protagonist’s wife has killed herself. The protagonist is not concerned for his own survival — he’s already dying — but for his son’s. He’s confronted with the wrenching knowledge that he might have to kill his son to save him from an even worse fate. But he hopes for something better, hopes that he will find good people with whom his son could make a future. The whole book is a dirge for civilization, but the father’s hope might only leave his son open to future horrors — and tragically, the father dies without knowing his son will fall in with good people after all.
In The Walking Dead, zombies are less agents of fear than they are death incarnate, and the comic often plays on themes of hope and how we cope with loss. Hope is tragic as much as it is necessary for survival. A farmer keeps his undead family in a barn by his house, hoping there will someday be a cure. The survivors hope to rebuild some semblance of civilization, but lose some of their number every time they think they’ve found peace. And as brutal and horrible as death is for the ones who die, the grief of the survivors is far more powerful and frightening.
The Fear of Dying Alone
It’s telling that the very first episode of The Twilight Zone , “Where Is Everybody?” deals with loneliness, and the human need for companionship. It’s a theme that inspired one of the more unnerving episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In “Remember Me,” Dr. Crusher sees the her son and everyone else aboard the Enterprise disappear, until she’s the only one left (of course, it turns out that she’s the one who has actually disappeared, in this case into a static warp bubble). The episode has a Twilight Zone quality to it, but it’s especially bleak that Crusher is at the center of it. Here is a woman who has already lost a husband to the hazards of Starfleet, whose closest friends routinely put their own lives in danger, and whose son is joining the very military organization that took her husband. “Remember Me” is, more than anything, a metaphor for the very real possibility that she could end up alone. Even Garfield, of all things, played with this idea in its surprisingly depressing 1989 Halloween run, where the orange fat cat wakes to a future where his house is abandoned and he never exists.
Even the episode of The Twilight Zone that was most optimistic about the apocalypse, “Time Enough at Last,” deals with loneliness. After a nuclear attack wipes out everyone around him, Burgess Meredith is about to commit suicide until he realizes there’s a library full of books to keep him company. It’s only when he breaks his glasses that he feels truly alone, and that loneliness is more frightening than anything that goes bump in the night.
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Posted by sean in Latest News, Television & Web Series on November 16th, 2009
Last week, the news came that Fox’s Dollhouse was being canceled, to the chagrin of fans and the joy of anyone at Fox who likes ad revenue. But fear not, Whedonites! The folks over at Sci Fi Wire have the scoop on what may be the geek god’s next project.
Apparently, a casting call’s gone out, looking to fill roles for an upcoming webseries based on Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer comic, Season 8, which acts as the official sequel to the TV series. Specifically, judging by the casting call, it’s probable that the webseries will adapt the series’ second arc, No Future For You. If you haven’t read it, well, it’s written by Brian K. Vaughn, one of the best names in comics today, so you’ll have to trust that this is a good thing. Also, it’s voice actors they’re looking for, since the webisodes will take the motion-comic format. And while I’ve always been vocal about my preference for comics in their original, intended print form, I’ve also admitted to enjoying certain motion comics immensely. So there’s certainly a good chance this will be well worth checking out.
Whedon’s Cabin In The Woods has been delayed until 2011, and there doesn’t seem to be any plan in place for a Dr. Horrible sequel anytime soon, so if you’re a fan, this is pretty much what you’ve got to look forward to in the immediate future.
So enjoy!
Posted by Debra in Books, Reviews on October 18th, 2009
Oh, Twilight, thankfully you cannot last forever. But your eventual decline and inevitable end will leave a deep hole in many a teenaged and menopausal heart. What can it be filled with? It’s obvious that there is no lack of dramatic, romantic, and vampiric YA Lit being puked into the market but it is hard to filter through the formulaic, Madlib-style books and find the precious few that remind us that the fantastic can still be well-written and worthwhile.
In this spirit, I recommend the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. Some of you may recognize her name from her hilarious and viral spoof of Lord of the Rings, Very Serious Diaries she wrote under the name of Cassie Clare. In Mortal Instruments, Clare brings the same sense of humor and mocking. With Whedon-esque pop-culture references, quips, and sarcasm, she quite obviously respects the reader’s intelligence and easily reaffirms that fast pacing and drama, and realist relationships and character development are not mutually exclusive.
The story follows Clary and her best-friend Simon after she witnesses a very strange murder at a dance club and then returns home to find her apartment ransacked, her mother missing, and a venomous creature waiting to kill her in the kitchen. After some sleuthing and rescuing, Clary is discovers that there is more to this world than she previously thought, including demons, monsters, and psychotic traitors with delusions of grandeur. Luckily for her, she also discovers a group that is charged with those creepy little nasties in line—the Shadowhunters.
The Mortal Instruments trilogy and Cassandra Clare have been gaining popularity. Her books are easily accessible and are must-reads for anyone who loves Twilight—or hates it. My geeky fangirl-ing has a secret goal of pushing a movie through the works. It is currently optioned by Unique Features, a film company set up by the founders and ex-co-presidents of New Line, which was responsible for the book-to-movie translation of titles such as Lord of the Rings, Iron Giant, and Clockwork Orange.
Granted, this trilogy will not change your life (If it does, that says more about you than the books.) but it is a fun and engrossing read that will make your day avoiding [insert responsibility here] go that much faster.
Posted by dominie in Movies on January 21st, 2009
While the details behind the storyline for writer Drew Goddard (Cloverfield) and partner Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods remain very hush-hush, the first official casting news was announced today via The Hollywood Reporter.
Richard Jenkins (The Broken) and Bradley Whitford are moving to The Cabin in the Woods. Jenkins is on board and Whitford is in final negotiations to star in the mystery-shrouded MGM/UA horror project written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, who also is directing. Whedon is producing.
Much like Cloverfield, which Goddard scripted, the Cabin story line provides a new twist on a classic scenario — in this case the young-people-stranded-in-the-woods horror trope.
“It’s really just your basic typecasting: When you need two actors to run through the woods in low-cut nighties, you immediately think of Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford,” Goddard joked. Whedon said the casting signals what kind of movie they are hoping to make. “They’re the first proof that though The Cabin in the Woods is a classic horror film, it isn’t one you’ve seen before.”
While the studio and filmmakers were loath to provide character details, it is understood that Jenkins and Whitford will play white-collar co-workers with a mysterious connection to the cabin.
The UA production is prepping for a spring shoot and will open wide February 5, 2010, with MGM distributing.
Posted by Dominic in Movies on August 22nd, 2008
Even without a finished screenplay or director or cast, MGM has so much faith in The Cabin in the Woods, they have scheduled it to open October 23, 2009. The film from co-writers Drew Goddard (Cloverfield) and Joss Whedon (Dollhouse) is now tentatively set to compete with Saw VI, which Lionsgate has already begun planning for.
Dark Castle has announced a new film, All Cheerleaders Die, which is not a remake of the film by the same name. Additionally, they have green-lit a new chapter in the Haunted Hill series.
Posted by Dominic in Latest News, Movies on July 27th, 2008
The show won’t be on the air until January at the earliest but that didn’t stop rabid fans from filling Hall H to hear Joss Whedon, Eliza Dushku and Tahmoh Penikett hold forth on their Fox series Dollhouse.
Whedon opened the talk by admitting to a long-standing man-crush on Penikett. The Battlestar Galactica star now will play an FBI agent who gets close to Dushku’s character, Echo, but the distance grows each time she portrays a new character.
Dushku recounted, again, the origins of the series, which has a seven episode commitment from the network. She then said Whedon “makes the words party on the page.” Whedon “fully puts me at ease and its fun work and fun livin’.” (more…)
Posted by Dominic in Latest News on July 23rd, 2008
Joss Whedon has posted a lengthy piece over at Whedonesque where he talked with Rutherford D. Actualperson about why he felt it necessary to shoot a new inaugural episode to his Fox series Dollhouse.
“The fact is, I’m very proud of the ep we shot and the series is making me crazy with the excitement,” he admitted to himself. “But I tend to come at things sideways, and there were a few clarity issues for some viewers. There were also some slight issues with tone – I was in a dark, noir kind of place (where, as many of you know, I make my home), and didn’t bring the visceral pop the network had expected from the script. The network was cool about it, but not sure how to come out of the gate with the ep.” (more…)
Posted by Dominic in Latest News, Movies on July 8th, 2008
The other day we excerpted comments from a Joss Whedon interview over at MTV regarding Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Also covered were his current film plans including the fact that Goners, the movie he was mounting over at Universal prior to Serenity, is now officially on the backburner.
He and Cloverfield’s Drew Goddard are at work on a script for a project called Cabin in the Woods. “It’s genius, it’s funny,” he told the network. “It’s got a harder and darker edge, but it’s also got classic Whedon qualities. It’ll rip your heart out and be heartfelt at the same time.”
Posted by Dominic in Movies on June 26th, 2008
Joss Whedon has been telling everyone in hearing range about Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog featuring the talents of Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion. They are intended to be 10-minute webisodes with various Hollywood creators involved. The first glimpse of this is now on line at Vimeo (www.vimeo.com). Aiding and abetting Joss Whedon are Zack and Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen. Also Mike Boretz, and David Burns.
Posted by Dominic in Television & Web Series on May 19th, 2008
In an interesting twist, Fox has announced that both Fringe and Dollhouse will enjoy six additional minutes of story at the expense of advertising. Dubbed “Remote-Free TV”, the intent is to keep people glued to their sets and not reach for the remote during the five or six commercial breaks per hour. There will, instead, be three advertising breaks.
Here is also the first full-cast picture of the Dollhouse team, with the show scheduled for a January debut, Mondays at 9, right after 24. Fringe, from J.J. Abrams, gets the prime slot Tuesdays after House. The series airs its 2-hour pilot on August 26.
Posted by Dominic in Movies on March 31st, 2008
The coolness that is likely to be Joss Whedon’s new Fox drama Dollhouse has been percolating pre-writer’s strike. With everyone back to work, Whedon has been busy completing the casting of the show which will star Eliza Dushku (Tru Calling) as Echo. Joining her as secret agents whose memories are wiped clean after each mission will be Dichen Lachman (Acquamarine) as Sierra and Enver Gjokaj (Spinning into Butter) as Victor.
Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica) will play FBI agent Paul Smith with Fran Kranz (Welcome to the Captain) playing brilliant scientist and computer programmer Topher Brink who imprints the dolls with specific memories. Smith and Echo will have a complex and yes romantic relationship.
Fox has given the show a seven episode commitment and expects to air this in the fall. With luck, unlike the network’s other SF offerings, this one will last.
Details surrounding the new Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard horror flick, The Cabin in the Woods, have been notoriously hard to come by. The most that the filmmakers have been willing to divulge is that the film represents an unusual twist on the familiar horror format.
