I love all things Halloween, but I have had difficulty getting into horror films. The reason is that I have a limit to how much I’m willing to be scared before I bolt for the exit. I’ve gotten better at watching horror films over the years, but my tastes lie in the older kinds of films, or those that aren’t afraid to get meta or satirize their premises. That’s why one of my all-time favorite horror films is Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s 2012 comedy horror, The Cabin in the Woods.
The Stereotypical Horror Turned on Its Head
Stop me if you’ve heard this setup before: a group of teens/young adults decide to go somewhere remote to blow off steam. They get there, only for them to become the victims of some supernatural killer. They make all the wrong decisions as they get picked off one by one until the last one standing gets out, albeit traumatized.
If that sounds like the plot of a basic slasher film, that’s because it is. The Cabin in the Woods is deliberately written to mirror the plot of yesteryear’s slasher films. That’s not supposed to be the part that makes it interesting. The part that’s supposed to be interesting is that a secret organization sets everything up to follow that formula to a tee.
A Film That Deliberately Follows the Horror Formula
As the film makes clear right off the bat, there’s a global organization, a la SCP Foundation, that oversees the yearly “Ritual.” They subject victims to their local brand of horror to kill them. The victims’ blood is then used to appease these Lovecraftian monsters sleeping within the Earth so they won’t rise and destroy everything. And it is hilarious to watch.
No, really. Seeing these guys in white suits and ties drinking excessive amounts of coffee and treating the entire thing like a regular job is darkly hilarious. Seeing them taking bets on what their designated victims will choose to kill them is even more hilarious. These are people’s lives that they’re deliberately trying to end, and they’re treating it like another day at the office, albeit one that could save humanity. I’m a fan of black comedy done right, and this film knew how to do it right.
The Cabin in the Woods Satirizes the Horror Genre on the Level of South Park
Speaking of which, The Cabin in the Woods does an excellent job of satirizing the formulaic approach to slasher films. It makes it a point of demonstrating that the only reason the victims act so dumb is because they’re being drugged and manipulated by chemicals. And even then, their attempts to make each victim fit an archetype are extremely clumsy. For example, one rule they have to follow is make sure their designated final girl is a virgin and dies last. As she herself points out in the climax, she’s not even that kind of virgin anymore. It feels like the film’s commentary on how studios try to shoehorn plot elements in when they won’t work, but I don’t know.
The thing that I love the most about Cabin in the Woods is the nature of these eldritch gods, the Ancients, that the organization hopes to appease. It could be easy to write them off as your standard Lovecraftian monsters. However, I prefer to see the Ancients as a self-insert for longtime fans of the slasher genre. They want the story to follow the same formula, otherwise they will get mad and destroy everything. That sounds a lot like some fans who get mad when their favorite franchise deviates from their expectations, so they go out of their way to complain about it. With how often that seems to happen online these days, it feels like Whedon and Goddard were onto something.
I normally don’t go for horror films, but when I do, I tend to go for the best. And while The Cabin in the Woods may not seem like much at first glance, it’s a pretty good watch. If you like stories that make fun of themselves and other stories, then give The Cabin in the Woods a watch this Halloween. It’s worth it to see all the references to other horror films…and Chris Hemsworth.
