The Cabin in the Woods/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Joss Whedon's involvement and the fact it finally got released.
  • Cargo Ship: Marty challenges Jules to make out with a wall-mounted wolf head while playing "Truth or Dare."
  • Cliché Storm: Intentionally invoked. The ritual pretty much has to be a Cliché Storm for it to work properly.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: The whole movie, but in particular Curt jumping the ravine only to hit the barrier, and the moment the elevators all open unleashing all of the monsters. And then they open again and unleash even more monsters.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Marty. As "the fool," he gets most of the funniest lines, is the only one who figures out the Controllers' game, and turns into the hero in the third act.
  • Family-Unfriendly Aesop:
    • "Maybe we should let civilization crumble, and we're just too chickenshit to let it."
    • "Smoke pot! You'll see things that others miss!"
  • Hate Dumb: A sizeable amount of people hate the movie while somehow not realizing that it's a parody, decrying it as the brainless torture porn that it's trying to deconstruct.
  • Irony: Of the dramatic variety. We are conditioned to think of the people as sacrifices because they are referred to as such. But in actuality, they are the heroes and heroines of their respective stories. The irony, then, is that the world is ended by ancient horrors because this time around Humanity managed to score a win against the forces of darkness. Is anyone aware of another example where winning every battle costs you the war?
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • Jules' death is brutal.
    • Are you afraid of clowns?
    • The entirety of "The Carnage" could count. Can you even imagine being trapped down there with almost every nightmare creature imaginable?
    • One of the most horrifying things contained in the cells is Kevin. Kevin is a seemingly ordinary Stepford Smiler with the power to drain people's blood. To make matters worse, it's never explicitly stated how he drains said blood...
  • Spiritual Licensee: Believe it or not, this makes for a pretty good adaptation of the SCP Foundation. The main bad guys are a nebulous organization of questionable morality which possesses an enormous catalogue of monsters and other dangerous supernatural items (in this case, horror movie baddies), which it keeps and controls so as to prevent an XK-Class end-of-the-world event. And when the heroes find out about the lengths they're willing to go to, they take one look and say "fuck it, better to let the world end." The similarities get even creepier. S. Andrew Swann's proposal for SCP-001 is that it's the people who are writing the website. In this world. And a very good case could be made that, in Cabin in the Woods, the Ancient Ones represent horror fans.
  • What an Idiot!: All of the evil monsters can be released with the press of a single Big Red Button. The Controllers are just asking for it!
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