Drew Goddard
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Connections, in both directions
There are clear parallels (and homages) to The Evil Dead and, well, let's just say other '80s horror films.
Can you say "The Evil Dead" rip-off?
It references slasher classics such as “The Evil Dead” and “Hellraiser” and plays corny cliches like a fiddle.
The Cabin is, as you'd expect, crammed to the rafters with genre references, among them The Shining, The Evil Dead, Cube, Hellraiser, The Blair Witch Project, the 1950s EC horror comics, Japanese horror (there's a delirious running gag about weird happenings in Kyoto), H P Lovecraft, even Michael Haneke's high-minded chiller-as-treatise Funny Games.
“Cabin” consciously evokes “The Evil Dead” as five college students gather to drive in their RV to a remote (i.e., scary) cabin.
Fans of rip-roaring horror films like “The Evil Dead” will have a field day with this ingenious sendup, which Joss Whedon—the mastermind behind the TV cult classics “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly”—produced and co-wrote with the director, Drew Goddard.
Horror fans will dig the references and the numerous subversions, which recall the intelligence of Wes Craven’s original Scream and then some, while even the more meek among you can’t fail to be impressed at how this keeps you guessing.
The premise isn't that original, harkening back to other self-referential films like Scream , (a friend also reminded me of one 1988 horror film in particular that has a strikingly similar plot), but the execution is satisfying, and the last 15 minutes or so are just about enough to make any horror fan worth his/her salt squee in delight.
Like its spiritual heirs - the "Scream" franchise, Eli Roth's "Cabin Fever" and the collected works of Sam Raimi - "The Cabin in the Woods" comes not only to praise the slasher-, zombie- and gore-fests of yore but to critique them, elaborating on their grammatical elements and archetypal figures even while searching for ways to put them to novel use.
Whedon has a distinctively snarky, smart-alecky writing style that has earned him legions of fans, and it is certainly on display here: the dialogue is full of knowing, sarcastic asides, and an aggressive pop culture awareness that recalls Scream.
It's a witty deconstruction of fantasy genres in the post-modern Scream vein and a weirdly wonderful twist on the whole Evil Dead scenario that ensures continual surprises.
"The Cabin in the Woods" is fun and meta-aware, but hardly original - it's like the Scooby Doo group entered an Evil Dead/Chainsaw mashup via The Truman Show and "Scream" already ran with the concept.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Themes Plot Dialogue
Tarantino set the template for this kind of self-aware homage a quarter-century ago with “Pulp Fiction” — a title that could just as easily have applied to Goddard’s all-too-familiar tribute to crime-novel archetypes and the films that immortalized them.
For his long-awaited follow-up, “Bad Times at the El Royale,” Goddard seems to have deliberately chosen to one-up himself, at least symbolically, with a film that feels at times as if it had been sitting on its own shelf for at least 22 years, right around the time when the vogue for films aping “Pulp Fiction” was at its apex and one could hardly go to a multiplex without encountering at least one twisty tale involving talkative criminals, ironic violence, unusual time structures and colorful dialogue chock-full of pop culture references galore.
First, it’s a better use of Tarantino’s signature plotting that whatever the heck last month’s Life Itself was, and secondly, at least someone has found a way to riff on newer films by that writer-director than the glut of films from the mid-90s and early 2000s that all wanted to be Pulp Fiction.
It took us 24 years, but we finally got a Pulp Fiction clone that’s worthy of standing beside the original.
You can also feel it in the dialogue scenes, which blend high stakes and mundane chatter with a sarcastic flair reminiscent of the Pulp Fiction director’s early work.
The talkier tendencies of Quentin Tarantino are an apt point of comparison here (some of the “Pulp Fiction” auteur’s stylistic proclivities come up, too).
It references slasher classics such as “The Evil Dead” and “Hellraiser” and plays corny cliches like a fiddle.
The Cabin is, as you'd expect, crammed to the rafters with genre references, among them The Shining, The Evil Dead, Cube, Hellraiser, The Blair Witch Project, the 1950s EC horror comics, Japanese horror (there's a delirious running gag about weird happenings in Kyoto), H P Lovecraft, even Michael Haneke's high-minded chiller-as-treatise Funny Games.
Sly reference is made to The Grudge and Hellraiser, to werewolves and zombies and fishmen and pretty much everything else known to go bump in the night.
The list of horror references in here is mind-boggling, from George Romero’s early work to The Shining , Evil Dead , Hellraiser , J-horror and all manner of others more subtle and obscure.
Along with numerous slashers and the Evil Dead series, there’s “J-Horror”, Hellraiser and gleeful nods to the duo’s previous work, both through casting (peripheral players such as Amy Acker and Tom Lenk are reassuring Whedon / Goddard regulars) and in overarching ideas - Season Four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer springs to mind as an example.
The students pick up what appear to be different horror film artifacts—a dusty diary, a Hellraiser-like puzzle, etc.—and one of those items activates a relatively scary horror scenario involving killer zombies.
It's all very much like The Truman Show (which is given a nod), and even more like The Hunger Games , which wasn't yet anything approaching a cultural phenomenon when Cabin was produced, but it still says something that of the two films from the first third of 2012 that heavily focus on a team of bloodless bureaucrats playing young people like rats in a maze in front of an infinity of cameras and with the apparent idea of producing populist entertainment, the one that is far more intelligent about its concept and more rigorous about how that concept would work in the "real" or at least real-enough world, is not the one that's making shit-tons of money.
Slowly, sneakily, Cabin has become a combination of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Truman Show .
I’ve seen a lot of rip-offs of “The Truman Show” and a lot of rip-offs of “Scream.”
As with “The Truman Show” (1998), there isn’t a sufficient amount of context and background to allow for a satisfying story to be told.
I won't spoil the film's surprises, but suffice it to say they find common ground with both The Truman Show and H.P. Lovecraft.
But there's also a hint of The Truman Show and a smidgen of The Matrix .
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Plot Visuals
But Goddard is up to something a little bit different than, say, “ The Hateful Eight .”
The film El Royale most evokes is Tarantino’s extremely flawed recent effort The Hateful Eight , a post–Civil War Western that threw eight strangers into a remote cabin and had them bounce off one another.
From Rope to The Hateful Eight, the concept has always been a way for directors to build tension slowly over a few hours.
Bad Times at the El Royale is Pulp Fiction meets The Hateful Eight – that is, the film has the strengths of the former and the weaknesses of the latter.
By pulling back you’ll see many structural similarities to Quentin Tarantino ‘s The Hateful Eight as well as his briefcase MacGuffin from Pulp Fiction courtesy of a bag of cash and film reel of sordid affairs.
Comparisons between El Royale and the cinema of Quentin Tarantino are perhaps inevitable, given the film’s violence, its kitschy throwback aesthetic, its ironic deployment of ‘60s pop standards, its chronology-shuffling Pulp Fiction-ish plotting and its sustained switcheroos of allegiance and chicanery (see: Reservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight).
It's possible to be funny and make a horror film that deconstructs itself--I'm thinking not of The Monster Squad, probably The Cabin in the Woods' closest spiritual analogue (and even as I say that, I feel bad--while Fred Dekker is an idiot, he's our idiot), but of genuine genre masterpieces like John Landis's An American Werewolf in London, Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn, and Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead.
Identity (2003)
Directed by James Mangold
influenced Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Plot
The plot, which in premise bears much in common with James Mangold’s 2003 Nevada hotel thriller “Identity,” loses its enigmatic edge a little over halfway in, and many of the more likable souls perish far too soon.
Goddard depicts no issue setting a period-happy tone that’s so very mixtape worthy, adding to the aesthetic charm of this Identity riff with gangsters and Far Cry 5 undertones.
I was waiting for the revelation of something deeply sinister, perhaps even paranormal, to explain the implausible isolation of what we’re witnessing, perhaps à la Cabin in the Woods, or even the 2003 movie Identity, which unfortunately kept springing to mind; that one was also about a group of strangers oddly sequestered at a rainy neon-soaked motel.
Unlike Identity , the hotel is what unites this group of strangers, rather than an intertwined history.
A sizzling neo-noir cousin of 2003's " Identity " and 2015's "The Hateful Eight," the film sidesteps the cookie-cutter in exciting ways; as the narrative unravels, it is near-impossible to predict where things are going.
The 'hotel movie' genre is tackled here (shades of Mangold's 'Identity' and even Tarantino's 'The Hateful Eight'), as the kindly, dementia-stricken Father Flynn (Jeff Bridges) checks into the El Royale with struggling back-up singer Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo) waiting in back of the line; there's also shady salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm), a regular at the joint, and Emily (Dakota Johnson) with her hippie gear and hot-rod car, who, we soon find out, holds a bound and gagged woman (Cailee Spaeny).
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Plot
Think of it like a heterosexual Clue mixed with a bisexual Reservoir Dogs, but not as fun.
Comparisons between El Royale and the cinema of Quentin Tarantino are perhaps inevitable, given the film’s violence, its kitschy throwback aesthetic, its ironic deployment of ‘60s pop standards, its chronology-shuffling Pulp Fiction-ish plotting and its sustained switcheroos of allegiance and chicanery (see: Reservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight).
Goddard takes a bit of Reservoir Dogs, a dash of Grindhouse, a scoop of Pulp Fiction, and a sprinkle of The Hateful Eight; tosses in a twisting timeline and characters hiding various skeletons in their closets; tops it off with a stop-in-your-tracks selection of songs; and shakes it all together in a cool, carefully selected apparatus.
There's a big dose of Reservoir Dogs in the violent-strangers-thrown-together setting, with echoes of Tarantino's later The Hateful Eight.
“Bad Times at the El Royale” is like an Agatha Christie story or one of many movies that clumsily trailed after Quentin Tarantino’s groundbreaking “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” in the 1990s.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997)
influenced Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Writer-director Goddard is a fascinating talent, having cut his teeth working for polar opposites J.J. Abrams (“Alias,” “Lost”) and Joss Whedon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel”).
Drew Goddard wrote for TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost before he started making movies, and it shows.
The director of Cabin In The Woods, TV's The Good Place and a writer of Lost, Cloverfield and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Drew Goddard's work has always combined thrills, twists, philosophical questions and a self-aware sense of humour.
This film is written and directed by Drew Goddard, who did the fantastic horror/comedy "The Cabin in the Woods" a few years back and who has written for great shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Alias" and "Lost."
Having made his bones writing for shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Alias, he went on to write 2008’s Cloverfield and co-write 2012’s The Cabin in the Woods, which he also directed.
That film's fatalism is echoed in part by Goddard's long-shelved directorial debut, The Cabin in the Woods, co-written by him and producer Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (where Goddard got his start) and writer-director of next month's The Avengers.
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Directed by John Landis
influenced The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Themes
It's possible to be funny and make a horror film that deconstructs itself--I'm thinking not of The Monster Squad, probably The Cabin in the Woods' closest spiritual analogue (and even as I say that, I feel bad--while Fred Dekker is an idiot, he's our idiot), but of genuine genre masterpieces like John Landis's An American Werewolf in London, Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn, and Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead.
The Shining (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Themes Plot
It’s as if the Overlook in The Shining had a casino that lost its license.
“Bad Times at the El Royale” appears to be writer director Drew Goddard’s attempt to make a Quentin Tarantino film, and is a 140-minute remix of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and the board game Clue.
The Cabin is, as you'd expect, crammed to the rafters with genre references, among them The Shining, The Evil Dead, Cube, Hellraiser, The Blair Witch Project, the 1950s EC horror comics, Japanese horror (there's a delirious running gag about weird happenings in Kyoto), H P Lovecraft, even Michael Haneke's high-minded chiller-as-treatise Funny Games.
The list of horror references in here is mind-boggling, from George Romero’s early work to The Shining , Evil Dead , Hellraiser , J-horror and all manner of others more subtle and obscure.
The references to the iconic elevator in The Shining are priceless.
Death of a Unicorn (2025)
Directed by Alex Scharfman
influenced by The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Themes Plot
…we even saw a small hint of such a thing in Drew Goddard's marvelous meta-horror flick "The Cabin in the Woods"…
…and The Cabin in the Woods literally drove the point home…
The Cabin in the Woods got one of its most memorable deaths from a horned horse.
Funny Games (2008)
Directed by Michael Haneke
influenced The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Visuals Themes
From its hilarious opening sequence (complete with a reference to Michael Haneke's "Funny Games," another film that dealt with the question of why audiences enjoy violent entertainments so much) to its genuinely breathtaking final image, "The Cabin in the Woods" is a keeper that will send viewers out into the streets afterwards in the throes of a cinematic contact high and the urge to tell friends who haven't yet seen it that they need to see it right that second.
The Cabin is, as you'd expect, crammed to the rafters with genre references, among them The Shining, The Evil Dead, Cube, Hellraiser, The Blair Witch Project, the 1950s EC horror comics, Japanese horror (there's a delirious running gag about weird happenings in Kyoto), H P Lovecraft, even Michael Haneke's high-minded chiller-as-treatise Funny Games.
If only the technology existed to turn the movie screen into a reflective surface - now *that* would have worked, like Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" played for actual comedy.
Because, you see, The Cabin in the Woods is the closest anyone’s ever likely to get to a lighthearted stoner version of Michael Haneke’s grueling movie about violence and voyeurism, Funny Games.
That’s also where Erivo, a Tony winner for “The Color Purple,” who steals the show here and in the upcoming “Widows,” has her first chance to sing.
Erivo won a Tony for her performance in the recent Broadway revival of The Color Purple, but this and next month’s Widows are her first film roles.
Erivo, a Tony-winner for “The Color Purple,” is astounding, carrying a wisdom and world-weariness the others can’t manage.
And the actors always give you something to watch: Erivo is a soulful new presence in movies (she won a Tony for the stage production of “The Color Purple”), Hamm is in exuberant form and Bridges hunkers down for a sneakily sincere turn.
But it’s the spectacular Erivo, a Tony winner for The Color Purple, who takes the acting honors, throwing in a few delicious songs (“You Can’t Hurry Love,” “This Old Heart of Mine”) in between demonstrations of, well … they won’t allow us to tell.
Striking Distance (1993)
Directed by Rowdy Herrington
influenced Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Music
There was “Mad World” in Donnie Darko, and “Creep” in The Social Network , but if anything, Bad Times At The El Royale harkens back to an even earlier example, Striking Distance , from 1993, which used “Little Red Riding Hood” as the serial killer’s musical cue.
Like its spiritual heirs - the "Scream" franchise, Eli Roth's "Cabin Fever" and the collected works of Sam Raimi - "The Cabin in the Woods" comes not only to praise the slasher-, zombie- and gore-fests of yore but to critique them, elaborating on their grammatical elements and archetypal figures even while searching for ways to put them to novel use.
The group seems fairly typical, comprised as it is of a high school jock (Chris Hemsworth), a nerd (Jesse Williams), a blonde bombshell (Anna Hutchison), a shrinking violet intellectual (Kristen Connolly) and a stoner (Fran Kranz), while the scenario seems fairly bog-standard and derivative of everyone from Sam Raimi (and The Evil Dead) to Eli Roth (and Cabin Fever).
After all the “Friday the 13th” films, the soon-to-be-rebooted “Evil Dead” films, Eli Roth’s 2002 effort “Cabin Fever” and last year’s abysmal “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil,” what is left of this let’s-get-some-young-people-into-the-woods-and-slaughter-them genre?
John Huston’s “Key Largo” is the movie that comes to mind as night falls and the rains come with it.
Stir in Psycho, Rashomon, John Huston's Key Largo, a whiff of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, and a smidgeon of Huston's Beat the Devil and assorted other what-the-hell buddy pics, notably Rat Pack items such as the original Ocean's 11 or Robin and the 7 Hoods.
Shades of All About Eve (1950) and, on a lesser scale, Key Largo (1948); that�s what I�ve been saying for years now!
The "Lost" writer, in his directorial debut, has an appreciation of satirical subtlety and visual excess that is reminiscent of "Robocop" director Paul Verhoeven in his prime.
The Final Girls (2015)
Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson
influenced by The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Themes Plot
As a meta work nestled in horror trappings, the film has already earned comparisons to Drew Goddard’s 2012 meta masterpiece The Cabin in the Woods, though frankly, The Final Girls feels closer to Joseph Kahn’s Detention in terms of its winking cheekiness.
It takes the "meta" approach of Scream and The Cabin in the Woods to the next level by placing the characters in the film inside another film populated by familiar tropes and stereotypes -- sort of like Pleasantville meets Friday the 13th.
Though not quite as inspired or consistent as the similarly self-mocking likes of “The Cabin in the Woods,” “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil,” or the first two “Scream” pics, this is good fun that should delight genre fans.
Screenwriters Joshua John Miller & M.A. Fortin have come up with a twist on the meta-horror movie that gave us films like "Scream" and "The Cabin in the Woods."
An antidote to the smugly clever The Cabin in the Woods , Todd Strauss-Schulson's film is built on personal trauma: Max's (Taissa Farmiga) loss of her mother, Amanda (Malin Akerman), who we see just before she's killed in a car accident, lamenting how her scream-queen stardom, cemented by the cheesy 1980s film Camp Bloodbath, has left her frustrated as a result of typecasting.