Choice Is Yours Vol. 195: Scream vs. The Cabin In The Woods
Scream (1996) – Dir. Wes Craven
Vs.
The Cabin In The Woods (2012) – Dir. Drew Goddard
Let’s get reverential for those who are referential. Let’s splatter the meta-text with some blood and boobies. That’s right, boobie splatter, don’t think about it too much alright. Check your rule book, tighten your chastity belt, don’t wander off alone, and most certainly don’t look in the cellar, because we’re about to get down to business choosing between the post-modern horror comedy titans Scream and The Cabin In The Woods.
I liked Cabin In The Woods very much – even more, in fact, when I watched it for the second time last night – but while praise for that movie was getting passed around like a Linnea Quigley character I was a mite peeved that people were acting like it was the first time a horror movie had essentially jerked off while looking at itself in the mirror. Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson shot that Pynchonic load over a decade ago! This has gone too far. That’s not necessarily a judgment on which one is better (though I have my preference), but more that you gotta be giving the love to Scream. But has the student surpassed the teacher?
Very tough to say. Overall Scream might be more astute, and toe the line between horrifying/intellectual/funny better (Cabin suffers from a deficiency of the first) but Cabin probably has more specific moments of brilliance. Cabin’s performances are technically stronger, but Scream’s are iconic (and some are brilliant: Lilliard, duh). They both have some memorable imagery. Killer endings. The choice is yours…
- Whole Milk
September 18th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
Cabin in the Woods wins by a mile, purely for the fact that they eliminate any possibility of sequels. That’s a bold move for any horror film, and is a great way to ensure you don’t end up with something as shitty as, say, Scream 3.
September 18th, 2012 at 6:30 pm
i still haven’t seen cabin in the woods, but i don’t give a damn.
scream will always be a horror classic, and cabin in the woods will never be.
September 18th, 2012 at 9:25 pm
Scream wins but nothing but respect for Cabin. It was so good.
September 19th, 2012 at 3:31 am
cabin in the woods!!!
September 19th, 2012 at 7:17 am
Saving my official selection until i see this cabin in the woods flick. Matter of fact, i was in a cabin in the woods when i first saw scream. I was in middle school, and there were girls around. so, it has a slight lead. obviously, my shitty sense of humor has left me with this other movie to watch. alone. so don’t get your fuckin hopes up, Goddard.
September 19th, 2012 at 9:32 am
Scream. I revisited Cabin and it’s really not that clever. Winking while you present one horror cliche after another doesn’t make it a clever movie. The last third is garbage and looks like a Resident Evil movie.
September 21st, 2012 at 1:15 pm
These votes for Scream are boggling my mind. They must be coming from people who saw it when they were young and haven’t looked back in a while.
Scream and Cabin both did a meta analysis of the horror genre. The difference is that Scream’s analysis was all about the ‘how’, but Cabin (while also going into the how) was a lot more concerned with the ‘why’. Scream explicitly refused to go into anything about the deeper reasons and motives behind the genre. Hell, Matthew Lillard’s character is specifically asked why he was killing, and just replies “I don’t know, the millennium?” (Now, this could have been a dip into 70′s-style horror nihilism, but Scream immediately undercuts it with the fucking idiotic, soap-opera-level motivation the main killer has about his mother and family and whatever the fuck).
So yea, seriously, Cabin in the Woods wins this one by a mile.