Abstract
‘Five friends go to a remote cabin in the woods. Bad things happen. If you think you know the story, think again.’ The tag line for postmodern horror comedy The Cabin in the Woods (2011) emphasises the fact that the basic premise of the film is one that has been replicated time and time again. In fact, the very predictability of the scenario is what allows the film to undermine our expectations. The audience doesn’t need to have it explained to them that the isolated cabin in the midst of the deep, dark forest is a locale in which horrific events will take place: they’ve seen it all before. The film, therefore, works as a de construction of the horror genre precisely because the setting has long since become the stuff of cliché. The fact that we think we ‘know’ the story is what allows the film’s disorientating opening sequence and the reality-warping revelations that follow to so effectively wrong-foot us.
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Notes
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© 2013 Bernice M. Murphy
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Murphy, B.M. (2013). The Cabin in the Woods: Order versus Chaos in the ‘New World’. In: The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137353726_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137353726_2
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