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{{quote|''"On another level it’s a serious critique of what we love and what we don’t about horror movies. I love being scared. I love that mixture of thrill, of horror, that objectification/identification thing of wanting definitely for the people to be alright but at the same time hoping they’ll go somewhere dark and face something awful. The things that I don’t like are kids acting like idiots, the devolution of the horror movie into [[Torture Porn]] and into a long series of sadistic comeuppances. Drew and I both felt that the pendulum had swung a little too far in that direction."''|'''[[Joss Whedon (Creator)|Joss Whedon]]'''}}
 
Five friends go to an isolated cabin in the woods for a weekend vacation. ''[[Tempting Fate|What could possibly go wrong?]]''
 
'''''The Cabin in the Woods''''', a 2012 horror movie, sets itself apart from other horror movies by virtue of its co-writers ([[Joss Whedon]] and ''[[Cloverfield]]'' writer Drew Goddard, who also directed this film) -- and by deconstructing both the cabin in the woods setting and horror movies in general. The film stars [[Thor (Filmfilm)|Chris Hemsworth]], [[Dollhouse|Fran Kranz]], Kristen Connolly, [[Power Rangers Jungle Fury|Anna Hutchison]], Jesse Williams, [[Amy Acker]], Richard Jenkins and [[The West Wing|Bradley Whitford]].
 
Feel free to watch the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXfc12BqFkc trailer], but know that it spoils the film a bit.
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== "Safe" tropes ==
* [[Actor Allusion]]: The uncredited, but extremely memorable [[One-Scene Wonder]] {{spoiler|[[Sigourney Weaver]]}} as the secretive, feared Director of {{spoiler|a government facility dealing with containing and exploiting the supernatural, and isn't above engaging in a little badassery when her goals are jeopardized}}. Which accurately describes the same performer's role as the "Big Guy" of the movie {{spoiler|''[[Paul (Film)|Paul]]''}}, which was released earlier but filmed later.
* [[All Men Are Perverts]]: When Jules and Curt go off to fool around in the forest, {{spoiler|the control room is packed to capacity with male staffers, all of whom (save Truman) are grinning ear to ear and eager to see some action}}. They only leave (with plenty of "Awww"s of disappointment) when Hadley shoos them out of the room.
* [[Anyone Can Die]]: In addition to the usual expected horror movie deaths, {{spoiler|this trope is also openly invoked as a plot point.}}
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** The intern splits the pot with Maintenance.
* [[Buffy-Speak]]: In the credits, even. "Japanese Floaty Girl."
* [[Casting Gag]]: This is the third time [[Amy Acker]] [[Angel (TV)|has played]] [[Dollhouse|a scientist]] in a Joss Whedon production.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: {{spoiler|Played with the coffee mug bong. Subverted with the motorbike.}}
* [[Closed Circle]]: The titular cabin. {{spoiler|The controllers try very hard to ''keep it'' closed, especially when the tunnel back to civilization fails to [[Broken Bridge|conveniently blow up.]]}}
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* [[Cruel and Unusual Death]]: ''All of them.''
* [[The Cuckoolander Was Right]]: {{spoiler|Marty was surprisingly on the money about a lot of things even before they started to go to hell.}}
* [[Cultural Translation]]: [[In -Universe]]; the Kyoto scenario invokes J-Horror tropes rather than American [[Horror Tropes]]. {{spoiler|It's stated by the Director that all other locations also use specific local iterations of said horror tropes.}}
* [[Curiosity Killed the Cast]]: {{spoiler|The controllers' job is to lead them to the cellar [[Closed Circle|(and keep them contained in the staging site)]]. But once the cellar is open, its various artifacts exposed to the group's curiosity, the controllers can't do anything. It's up to the teens themselves to actually pick one. Of course, they ''all'' find something that interests them personally, and it was just a matter of who would activate their artifact first.}}
* [[Danger Takes a Backseat]]
* [[Death Byby Irony]]: {{spoiler|Steve, the control room honcho who gripes a few times about never getting to see mermen kill the co-eds is himself killed by a merman. [[Lampshade Hanging|He even says]], "Oh, come ''on''!" when he realizes it.}}
* [[Death Byby Sex]]: [[Playing Withwith a Trope|Invoked, lampshaded, discussed, and justified]], not all in that order.
* [[Deconstructive Parody]]
* [[Deconstructor Fleet]]: Of horror films.
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* [[Even Evil Has Loved Ones]]: [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Insofar as they can be called evil]], the opening scenes show Hadley talking to Sitterson about how he and his wife are preparing to have a baby.
* [[Everybody Lives]]: {{spoiler|The Japanese scenario. At least until the failure of the US branch leads to the end of the world...}}
* [[Expy]]: Fornicus, Lord of Bondage and Pain, is an obvious riff on [[Hellraiser (Film)|Pinhead]], with his puzzlebox, bondage outfit, and head full of sharp objects.
* [[Faceless Goons]]: "Internal Security"
* [[Face Revealing Turn]]: The ballerina girl/"Sugarplum Fairy". {{spoiler|Though it would be generous to call it a "face".}}
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** {{spoiler|The opening credits have unmistakable illustrations of [[Human Sacrifice]]}}.
* [[The Fool]]: Marty is called this by many, but he surprisingly fits into the Tarot archetype beyond just being a hippie stoner--he manages to succeed where others fail, often by pure luck.
* [[Freeze -Frame Bonus]]: Multiple, all overlapping. The myriad artifacts the cast finds in the basement, the board at the beginning showing {{spoiler|the various and sundry ways the characters could [[Ghostbusters|choose the form of the destroyer]] }}, then the [[Monster Mash]] cameos during "The Carnage".
* [[Friendship Moment]]: When creepy station attendant Mordecai snaps angrily at Jules, Marty steps in to snark right back at him.
{{quote| '''Mordecai:''' "You sassin' me, boy?"<br />
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* [[Hillbilly Horrors]]: "They may be zombified pain-worshipping backwoods morons ..." "But they're ''our'' zombified pain-worshipping backwoods morons."
* [[History Repeats]]: {{spoiler|The US branch has had only one glitch, in 1998, when the Chem[ical] Department failed to do its duty. Guess which department failed to account for Marty's hobbies?}}
* [[Hoist Byby His Own Petard]]: {{spoiler|The controllers are set upon and killed by the various horrors they've sealed away to release on the subjects.}}
* [[Hotter and Sexier]]: {{spoiler|The white board for the betting pool has "witches" and "sexy witches"}} Though you never get to see them.
* [[Human Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Necessary to appease the Ancient Ones, though they don't just want deaths, but suffering as well}}.
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* [[I Need a Freaking Drink]]: When the scientists start cracking open beers, Lin says that while Hadley and Sitterson are celebrating, she is drinking.
* [[Industrialized Evil]]: The controllers have done this so long, they're completely desensitized to it and run a betting pool for fun. What's more, they've basically turned ritualistic murder into a factory assembly job.
* [[Infant Immortality]]: We see a classroom of Japanese schoolgirls (all age nine) being terrorized by an angry spirit. {{spoiler|Later, they are seen subduing the ghost with a ritual song; we are then told that there were ''zero'' fatalities. Of course, [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|the end implies that they're doomed anyway]].}}
* [[It Got Worse]]: "Oh, man..."
* [[Ironic Echo]]:
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* [[Killer Game Master]]: Hadley and Sitterson have this trope ''as their profession''.
* [[The Last of These Is Not Like the Others]]: Werewolves, robots, ghosts, zombies, giant snakes..... and a [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|bloodthirsty unicorn]]
* [[Leaning Onon the Fourth Wall]]:
** When Truman objects to {{spoiler|manipulating the teens to have sex in the woods, just so the cameras can capture Jules' nudity, the controllers respond with "Gotta keep the customers satisfied."}}
** {{spoiler|When The Director mentions "Eight minutes to sunrise" when talking about the Gods destroying the earth, there are eight minutes left until the lights come up in the movie theater.}}
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* [[Lovable Jock]]: Curt and Holden. {{spoiler|At first, anyway. The controllers use mind-altering chemicals to turn Curt into a [[Jerk Jock]], and Holden into a [[Hollywood Nerd]] to fulfill their roles in the ritual.}}
* [[Monster Mash]]:
** The whiteboard has a [[Long List]]: [[Wolf Man|Werewolf]], [[Starfish Aliens|Alien Beast]], [[Mutants]], Wraiths, [[Everything's Deader Withwith Zombies|Zombies]], [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|Reptilius]], [[Monster Clown|Clowns]], [[Wicked Witch|Witches]], [[Hot Witch|Sexy Witches]], [[Our Demons Are Different|Demons, Hell Lord]], [[When Trees Attack|Angry Molesting Tree]], [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|Giant Snake]], [[Evil Dead (Film)|Deadites]], [[Mummy]], [[Kill Bill|The Bride]], [[Scary Scarecrows|The Scarecrow Folk]], [[Snowlems|Snow]][[Jack Frost (1997 (Filmfilm)|man]], [[Bat Out of Hell|Doombat]], [[Our Vampires Are Different|Vampires]], [[An Arm and Aa Leg|Dismemberment Goblins]], [[The Fair Folk|Sugarplum Fairy]], [[Our Mermaids Are Different|Merman]], [[Re-Animator (Film)|The Reanimated]], [[Unicorn]], Huron, [[Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti|Sasquatch, Yeti]], [[Wendigo]], [[Creepy Doll|Dolls]], [[Deadly Doctor|The Doctors]], [[Hillbilly Horrors|The Redneck Torture Family]], [[All Hallow's Eve|Jack O'Lantern]], [[Our Giants Are Bigger|Giant]], [[Creepy Twins|Twins]] and Kevin (who, per [[Word of God]], is [[Face of an Angel Mind of Aa Demon|a sweet, harmless looking guy who will exsanguinate you in seconds]]).
** Other monsters seemingly not mentioned on the whiteboard, but spotted throughout the film, include a [[Giant Spider|man-sized tarantula]], a [[Our Ghosts Are Different|ghostly woman]], a quartet of [[The Strangers|masked figures]], some manner of [[Everything's Squishier Withwith Cephalopods|giant cephalopod]], a [[Torture Technician|medieval torturer]], a [[Mechanical Monster|scorpion-like automaton with a buzzsaw for a stinger]], something terrible that [[Ceiling Cling|crawls toward the camera on the ceiling]], a [[Stringy Haired Ghost Girl]], a dead [[King Kong]]-esque [[Kaiju]] seen on a monitor, a [[Creepy Child]] whom a guard tries to escape by [[First Encounter Assault Recon|dragging himself along the floor]], and [[Hellraiser|Fornicus]], Lord of Bondage and Pain (though he may be the "Hell Lord" on the whiteboard). And finally, there's {{spoiler|[[Eldritch Abomination|The Ancient Ones]]}}.
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: The movie is exceedingly fond of making hilarious jokes instants before gruesome events, and vice-versa.
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: {{spoiler|Fornicus, Lord of Bondage and Pain.}}
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* [[Side Bet]]: The scientists bet on {{spoiler|what horror the protagonists will select}}.
* [[Shout-Out]]:
** ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'': The symbol on the floor and the one on the controllers' talismans sure looks like the Circle of the Black Thorn . . .
** The entire controller's compound is reminiscent of The Initiative from ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''.
** ''[[The Evil Dead]]'': College friends, cabin in the woods, evil basement, ominous book with ancient chant, and evil molesting trees. "Deadites" also show up on the betting board. The cabin itself looks almost identical to the one from the Raimi movies.
** ''[[Hellraiser]]'': The pale guy in black bondage gear, holding a puzzlebox, with sharp metal things embedded in his head.
** ''[[Serenity (Film)|Serenity]]'': During "The Carnage", one video clip shows the woman from ''Serenity'' shooting herself before being taken by Reavers. And you wouldn't know it was from somewhere else.
*** Incorrect. The actress was not Sarah Paulson and it was not the exact clip, just an homage.
** ''[[Alien (Filmfranchise)|Alien]]'': On a monitor during "The Carnage" you can see the foot of a Xenomorph advance towards a cowering woman, the same way the shot happened in another movie Sigourney Weaver was in. (Hint: It's Alien)
** The third act is full of shout outs to a bevy of horror films from recent years, among the more generic zombies and [[Giant Spiders]] are some doll-masked [[The Strangers|strangers]], a [[Left 4 Dead|Boomer]], a torturer in a mask and leather apron straight from [[Hostel (Film)|Hostel]] and the scarecrows that tear apart {{spoiler|Truman}} are actually from the 80's B-movie [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096046/ of the same name], they even get taken out the same way.
** ''[[Carrie]]'': The very end, {{spoiler|with the hand comimg out of the ground, might be a reference to the ending of ''Carrie''.}}
** The shifting square containment cells might be a shout out to [[Cube]].
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** ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon]]'': A formally heavily armed SWAT member crawls away from a [[Creepy Child]].
** ''[[The Strangers]]'': some of the villains in the carnage are a group of silent, well-dressed men and women with white porcelain masks. They are later seen dousing some bound technicians with gasoline, implying that they're non-supernatural killers.
* [[Shoot the Dog]]: {{spoiler|Dana comes close to doing this when she strongly considers killing Marty to prevent [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]].}}
* [[Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Trailer]]: {{spoiler|Sigourney Weaver.}}
* [[Slashers Prefer Blondes]]: Enforced as {{spoiler|Jules}} dyes her hair blonde just before the trip. The controllers even put toxins and pheremones in the dye to influence her behaviour.
* [[Smart People Know Latin]]: Played very deliberately. There is literally nothing to establish Holden as the Smart Guy except that he wears glasses and suddenly remembers enough high school Latin to decipher the incantation. The only reason he's The Scholar is because the controllers decided he is.
* [[Spanner in Thethe Works]]: {{spoiler|Marty, the Fool, had the audacity to survive when he was supposed to die. [[Deconstructed Trope|This is not as much of a good thing as it sounds.]]}}
* [[Spooky Painting]]: The hunting scene portrayed in Holden's room is kinda.... visceral.
* [[The Stars Are Going Out]]: Marty notices that there are no stars outside, despite being out in the middle of the woods.
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* [[Stringy Haired Ghost Girl]]: What a classroom of Japanese students are shown contending with.
* [[Stupidity-Inducing Attack]]: {{spoiler|The scientists spiked Jules's hair dye with toxins to gradually decrease her intelligence.}}
* [[Taking You Withwith Me]]:
** {{spoiler|Truman blows himself and a bunch of scarecrows up with a grenade. Still doesn't save Hadley, Sitterson and Lin.}}
** {{spoiler|Marty and Dana do it to ''the whole of humanity''}}.
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** {{spoiler|Marty finds the hidden cameras and concludes, "I'm on a ''reality TV show!''"}}
* [[X Meets Y]]:
** Some call it ''[[The Evil Dead]]'' (cabin in the woods) meets ''[[The Truman Show (Film)|The Truman Show]]'' {{spoiler|(people watching and controlling the cabin)}}
** Or ''[[Funny Games]]'' meets ''[[Inglorious Basterds]]'', for the [[Black Comedy]], [[Medium Awareness]], and [[Deconstruction]] of [[Horror Tropes]], as well as the ''extremely'' over-the-top [[Bloody Hilarious|violence, gore, and absurdity.]]
** Or ''[[Resident Evil]]'' meets ''[[Portal (Video Gameseries)|Portal]]'' for the zombie siege meets "escaping the cage"
* [[You Bastard]]: {{spoiler|The Ancient Ones are basically like horror movie viewers. They watch for people to die in horrific, troperiffic ways, and, when their world does not go as they wanted it to, want to make it go away. And it's hard to not see the scientists/puppeteers as a metaphor for Hollywood's current horror output, repeating the same formula ad infinitum to appease its target audience's appetite for sex and gore as religiously as any ancient ritual. And you can see the two main scientists as a metaphor for a writer and a director, forced to keep putting out the same dross and lamenting their inability to try anything creative. 'I'll never see a merman,' indeed.}}
 
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* [[Downer Ending]]: One of the only pieces of fiction where [[Endofthe World As We Know It|the world could end]]...''and it does''.
* [[Physical God]]: Judging from the giant fiery hand we see at the end, it can be inferred that the Ancient Ones are this.
* [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]]: No hope for a sequel here, people.
** Not necessarily. Why should we believe the assumption that the gods mean to destroy the world is accurate? Maybe they just want to give humanity the secret of space travel or immortality.
* [[Kill'Em All]]: No, not just everyone in the movie. [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|EVE-RY-ONE]].
* [[Playing Withwith a Trope]]: [[The Movie]].
* [[Stealth Parody]]: Though it's pretty obvious, [[Poe's Law|people still seemed to miss the point]] and decried it as [[Hate Dumb|"A disgrace to true horror"]]. It helps that it was [[Trailers Always Lie|advertised as a straight horror film.]]
 
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