The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

SPOILER WARNING!!! This post spoils movie The Cabin in the Woods (2012). This is one of the best horror movies I have ever seen. This has to be seen unspoiled. I am not sure, if I should even write about this movie like this, because this spoils the movie. However here this post is. You should watch this movie before going any further.

What would make reality tv better? Yes. Contestants dying horribly. We get that in this movie, where Ancient Ones are the audience and we have to make reality tv for them. If we don't, they will destroy all of us. Ancient Ones want to have at least one sacrifice every year. Sacrifices are built like reality tv shows. Sacrifice stages are around the world and at least one must do the sacrifice each year.

This is story of american sacrifice stage. It is the cabin in woods. Cellar of the cabin has all kinds of items. There victims choose which horror monster will kill them. They don't know they are choosing anything. Production staff makes bets which monster gets chosen. Sacrifice and deaths are just part of the game for them. Production staff controls everything that happens around the cabin. When victims try to escape, they block the way out. They try to make the sacrifice go as planned. Every sacrifice stage has different sacrifice planned. This year every other sacrifice has failed. Cabin sacrifice is last hope to please Ancient Ones.

Victims are students, who are going to cabin for weekend or something. There are two athletic men, two girls for them and one stoner. They choose zombie family for their killers. Sacrifice has to follow horror movie clichés. When victims are not ready do what the are supposed to do, production staff uses gas and chemicals to change their minds. Stoner is only one, who seems realize, that there is something wrong. Others follow their roles. Zombie family starts to kill victims one by one. Every kill is part of sacrifice.

Production staff start to celebrate, when only the virgin girl is alive. She isn't actually virgin, but that doesn't seem to matter. Virgin can survive from sacrifice. Problem is that Stoner is still alive too. He saves Virgin and takes her to backstage of sacrifice stage. There they find all kinds of nightmarish monsters there. They realize what all of this was.

Production staff has improvise. They have to kill Stoner before Virgin. This helps Stoner and Virgin escape. They release all the monsters to backstage. Production staff gets their share of horror and death, when monsters start to kill them. Stoner and Virgin enter to sacrifice altar, where they are told, they had to die in correct order and Stoner has to die before sunrise or it will be end of the world. Monsters interrupt discussion. Stoner and Virgin decide not to complete sacrifice. This causes Ancient Ones to rise from below.

At first, this may look like commentary of reality tv. I see this as commentary of battle between generations. Production staff is older generation, who demands younger generation to sacrifice themselves, to let older generation enjoy their benefits of life. Modern day youth doesn't have similar future ahead of them that their parents had, when they were the young generation. They could have jobs for life. Today no-one can expect to have one job to last for life. Younger generation is living in totally different world than older generation. Older generation controls everything and tries to make everything to work for their benefit. Some members of younger generation has seen this and they have dropped out of the system. Stoner represents them. Production staff's methods didn't work on him and he finally took the system down. Younger generation may not like their role and may take the system down like Stoner and Virgin did in this movie. That would hurt older generation.