Cabin in the Woods - Conventions of Horror and Sub-genres


Cabin in the Woods is a horror which features a combination of the typical conventions from a variety of subgenres. These subgenres include, slasher, zombies, monsters, werewolves and splatter. The film uses the iconic stock characters of a slasher. The film features 5 teenagers who indulge in certain activities such as drugs and sex. The teenagers are killed as a sacrifice to the Gods, however they do not know this until the end. Their killings are controlled in a technical lab underneath the cabin which is run and controlled by adults who are making the sacrifice. They are killed by the order of adults for their youth and therefore this can be viewed as teen punishment.  The teenagers include the blonde slut who is typically the first to die for being promiscuous, therefore supporting this common convention. It also features the final girl, the virgin who survives. However this convention of a slasher is challenged as another male character survives too. However, unlike a usual slasher of just one masked killer, there are multiple killers including zombies, monsters and werewolves, the main killer being a family of zombies. These killers are all part of an experiment which can support the common convention of monster horrors where they are used as an experiment, in this case to make a sacrifice. The film also features some gore which can relate to the subgenre of splatter, however gore isn’t the main focus of the film as it isn’t extreme. During the film a short clip of another sacrifice taking place in Japan shows where we see what we can expect to be a Yurei. This is because we see a women with long dark hair dressed in white. This is therefore a common convention of the subgenre j-horror. Although this isn’t the main focus of the film it does feature briefly.

Comments

  1. ctkmedia13 September 2017 at 01:31

    You have identified the subgenres in the film with some examples WT.C
    How does the film use the understanding concept of genre to entertain or appeal to the horror fan audience?

    ReplyDelete

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