The Cabin in the Woods

Although this the first time I’ve watched Cabin in the Woods, going into the screening knowing that it was co-written by Joss Whedon did shift my attention towards certain themes that are common to his other works. His television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff, Angel (both of which I am an unapologetically huge fan) operate according to the premise that there exists a parallel universe in which humans and other supernatural creatures (for the most part) function unknowingly as pawns in the political games of “Divine Engineers” (called the “Powers that Be” in the series). In particular, the concept of an undercover, human-run facility in which supernatural/fantastic species are imprisoned for observation and testing is also a direct carryover from season 4 of Buffy, in which the protagonist becomes romantically involved with a member of a secret military organization -- coined “the Initiative” – that uses vampires, werewolves, and other spooks as lab rats for the creation of a demonoid master-race.

Fan-girl observations aside, I felt that a certain homage was paid to the Gothic genre in the film’s opening plot. Similar to The Haunting of Hill House, or The Fall of The House of Usher, a person or group of persons retire to an aged, geographically isolated building (the cabin) with a sinister history involving some sort of ill-fated family (the Buckner’s “pain-cult,” the-inbred, “cursed” Usher line) and with one of the characters having a family connection to the building (the cabin is supposedly the property of Curt’s cousin, Luke is the heir of Hill House, etc).