Well my webcam and USB headset are out of commission due to the irresponsibility of certain children who we won’t discuss here and now, so my only recourse is to write a comment on your site.

Enjoyed the last couple of shows discussing the worst and best horror films of the last year. I think you took some liberties with your definition of horror (Dredd 3D, really?) because blood and gore: a horror movie they do not make. Still I enjoyed hearng your opinions of the films discussed. You two should consider doing a top 10 horror films of all time list as I think it will help better define your each individual tastes on the subject. If anything I get to hear Doc speak about why he likes “The Car” so much. Also if you take requests, I wouldn’t mind hearing a top 5 or 10 favorite scii-fi horror films. Being a big sci-fi geek I’d like to see where your taste lies in this area as well.

The last thing I’ll write about is your #1 pick for best horror film: Cabin In The Woods. If Tom thought Rafe was uptight wait till he a gets a hold of me. I don’t deny that CITW is a good film (in fact it’s my #3 movie of the year) but I do have a number of issues with it.

The first is familiarity. I’m a big Whedon fan but as a result my familiarity with his style, it has made me somewhat jaded toward his presentation of it. A corporate entity who knows and is in league with demonic forces is a concept already explored in Angel. And if you’ve seen the last episode of that series you know it ends similarly to CITW. Also the humor is somewhat familiar with interruption in conversations and outrageous or extremely subtle reactions to scenes which should endear the opposite effect. It’s something I like about Whedon. In fact my favorite humorous scene in the film is when Richard Jenkiins starts shouting obscenities at a televised image of Japanese schoolgirls after they’ve successfully exorcised the demon from their classmate. It nicely juxtaposes the understanding of the frustration of the character with the inappropriateness of being so vehemently angry at innocent children. But other comedic scenes like the speakerphone bit and the “Tequila” interruption, while not expected was not as surprising as it should have been and that’s because I’m familiar with Whedon’s style. But that’s one small nitpick, here are two others.

The second deals with some plot elements that are left dangling or just unexplored. It wouldn’t surprise me for Whedon to bring out a Chekhov’s gun and not use it because that’s what’s expected of him, but I find it unclear in these cases. One is that it is suggested that the the players of the game must choose to play the roles they’ve been assigned to in order for the ritual to work. But “the puppeteers” seem to do more than guiding the characters into the decisions. By using drugs and the environment, they take the choice out of the characters hands. Hemsworth completely changes his mind about staying together the instant an air agent is introduced to his system. And after they split up, the doors to the individuals rooms are locked to prevent any collaboration. None of these are choices the characters are making and it breaks the rules established earlier in the film. Of course Whedon likes to break the rules.

The other plot element that is suggested and eventually abandoned is that there was an inside man causing the havoc that occurs at the headquarters. It begins with the failure of the cave collapse to prevent the players from leaving the area. It is suggsted twice that some else may have been involved but it gets dropped by the end of the film as all available suspects are killed off. I’m presuming that it was a red herring provided by Whedon but it is so underused that one wonders if there was any point in making it some what relevant.

My last nitpick is probably the strongest one since it involves a plot contrivance which is something Whedon usually does his best to avoid. It involves the end of the movie where the characters get into a control room and find the one button that releases all the monsters into the facility. I mean what possible situation could arise that would necessitate the need for such a function to exist. It the same kind of conceit that suggests that every big spaceship has a self destruct switch. I mean I enjoyed the “elevator ding” as every cage was opened but let’s face the fact that it was a major contrivance in order to give us the spectacular end sequence we received. “Let’s get this partt started ” indeed.

Pardon me for the brevity of my post. I didn’t the time or mental resourses to make it longer. As always, great show and a great site. Keep up the good work and Happy New Year.

P.S. An answer to your question form podcast #32. Not a big horror fan but here are my top three monsters for 2012.

1. The wolves from The Grey. And this coming from a man who likes dogs.
2. The bullies from “Bully”. The unfortunate real monsters of the world.
3. The Nazis from “Iron Sky”. Because we can all agree that Nazis are monsters