Cabin In The Woods Analysis

Task 3:
Cabin in the woods uses very typical horror conventions in its movie such as the cast, which includes “the jock”, “the dumb blonde”, “the druggy”, “the smart one” and “the virgin”. The film seems like a supernatural, slasher film and its mise en scene shows this. There are zombies which show the supernatural side but these zombies are equipped with weapons, showing the slasher side. The film definitely sexualizes women such as in the scene whereby she is attacked by the zombie after she nearly drowns and is thrown around the place which is a representation of domestic violence, as she is powerless to this figure she cannot seem to escape no matter where she goes, deeming her defenseless

Task 4:

Cabin in the woods is interesting in how it tells a message throughout its whole runtime. The film starts with the typical “teens go to a creepy cabin the middle of nowhere surrounded by the supernatural” setting but it diverges into a deeper conspiracy about how the Gods and demons below us require sacrifices from five people, namely “the jock”, “the dumb blonde”, “the druggy”, “the smart one” and “the virgin” and how they need to be killed in an exact order, with a nameless corporation carrying out these sacrifices in order to keep the world in balance. The film is a metaphor for the horror industry and its audience. The Gods will destroy the world if this “show” isn’t up to their standard and this represents the horror audience and how if a movie fails, they will be displeased. The nameless workers are the movie makers, trying so desperately to make sure we are entertained. They even act casually as they watch these teens die and that’s representative of how we have seen the same types of movies over and over again, to the point that we are desensitized to all the death surrounding us that we even bet on how they’re going to die before it happens. The teens in the movie are the actors, being forced to do as they say by the movie writers and are just doing what they want for the sake of the audience, they are “puppets”. The movie explains the reasoning for different horror tropes such as why they would split up and there is even a point in the film when they ask why the jock character is acting like a jock because typically he is really a sociology major. The movie pokes fun at typical horror conventions and themes such as teen punishment because as an audience, that’s what we want to see. 

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