5. The Cabin In The Woods (2012) – Horror Genre Satire

Yes, okay – the title says “hidden”, and The Cabin in the Woods‘ horror satire is pretty obvious, but there are layers to it which are easy to miss, and that warrants further inspection. It’s a film that starts much like many horror movies: a group of college students set off to spend the weekend in an isolated cabin engaging in general debauchery only to be set upon by sinister forces. However, the difference with The Cabin in the Woods is that it’s all being orchestrated as part of a ritual to appease the Ancient Ones, subterranean deities who threaten to destroy the Earth if they aren’t appeased with annual sacrifices.

The way that the film’s technicians use various horror monsters to complete the ritual in line with common horror tropes sets up obvious genre satire, but the nature of the ritual itself goes a little deeper. Reading into the film’s subtext, the Ancient Ones can be seen as a representation of horror audiences, with the threat being one to the filmmakers rather than the entire world. By fulfilling certain expectations, the technicians (or filmmakers) appease the Ancient Ones (the audience) in order to continue living (or, y’know, making movies).

It may seem an odd message for the film to deliver (although the allegations against Joss Whedon add an interesting context), but there is something interesting in it. It’s essentially a rumination on the difficulty in creative innovation, particularly when bound by the expectations that come with the categorization of labels. Straying too far from the charted path is shown to be not just dangerous, but life-threatening, which raises some interesting questions on whether there’s still room for genuine originality in Hollywood.

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