Monday, April 16, 2012

A Fistful of Cabins! (Brad's Picks)


Drew Goddard & Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods attempts to pay homage while satirizing the horror genre, and it does a fine job with its jabs.  But it got ITMOD thinking about the Cabin setting...what are the five great lodges in cinema?  Where would you want to make your last stand against a horde of undead horror?


5.  Silverado:  Director Lawrence Kasden wanted to start off his grand, sweeping Western Epic in the tiniest of claustrophobic spaces, a splintering ramshackle cabin no bigger than most people's walk-in closets.  Soon bullets riddle the shack and cowboy Scott Glenn must spring into action, kicking open the door and revealing a gorgeous widescreen landscape.  Bruce Broughton's score erupts and the adventure begins!


4.  Rocky IV:  After big bad Ivan Drago breaks Rocky's BFF Apollo Creed, Sly Stallone has to travel to Mother Russia for the final showdown against communism.  But first, ol' Rocky's gotta do the training montage!  And where oh where will Rocky train while Drago is pumped with steroids by Soviet Scientists?  A remote lodge in some frozen wasteland!  There Rocky will grow a real serious beard, haul Paulie around like a sled dog, and chop oodles & boodles of fire wood.  But at least it looks warm in that cabin with Adrienne.


3.  Death Hunt:   Wrongfully accused of murder, troglodyte Charles Bronson fends for himself and his cabin while Canadian Mountie Lee Marvin tries to make sense of it all.  Grab all the pitchforks you want, I don't think you're getting in as long as Bronson's got his shotgun.


2.  Foxy Brown:  When you pose as a prostitute in an effort to avenge your boyfriend's murder things may not go as according to plan.  Sooner or later the frog madam may dump your ass in the rape shack.  I know what Dante had in mind for his Inferno,  but I believe he left off this nasty circle of hell as to not scare the tourists.  Sure, Pam Grier is a definite badass, but these backwards hicks get the best of her at the midway point of Foxy Brown and no matter how much brutality she eventually dishes out, the horrors of the shack cannot go unseen.


1.  The Evil Dead:  The cabin to end all cabins.  I don't think you'll find much disagreement on this matter.  Whatever genius splatstick comedy is found in Evil Dead II, I still argue that the best Deadite adventure is the lowbudget and genuine creepy scares of the original film.  Whether it's the thumping of the porch swing or the grabby trees in the woods, the next time you spend a night in a wooded dump you won't be thinking of Abe Lincoln's log cabin--you'll be thinking of Ash, and you'll be looking for a chainsaw.


--Brad

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