Cabin in the Woods - Themes and Sub-text

Teen punishment is a theme which features in Cabin in the Woods. The five main characters are a group of teenage friends who indulge in activities such as drugs and pre-marital sex and this is what they are punished for. We are aware of this as the first character to die is the blonde slut who is actually killed in a scene where she is being promiscuous with her boyfriend and is therefore punished for this. Furthermore the virgin survives in the film suggesting that her purity saved her. Moreover, the lab is controlled by adults who are sacrificing the teenagers for their youth to the Ancient Gods. They are therefore being punished for being young.

Within the film the two female characters represent two different types of women, the blonde slut and the virgin. The film suggests that being promiscuous is wrong, hence why the blonde slut dies first, and therefore being pure is good and why the virgin survives. In the film, if the virgin dies at all, she has to be the last to die. This can be seen as a reward for her purity. The male characters of the film represent typical characters of ‘the jock’, ‘the nerd’ and ‘the fool’. ‘The jock’ character is typically in a relationship with the blonde slut and ‘the nerd’ and the virgin can appear to like on another and ‘the fool’ is just on his own.

Yonic and phallic imagery is represented through weapons and objects within the film. In a scene we see the virgin character repeatedly stabbing a zombie to death, even when he is dead she still continues to stab him, this could be representative of her not knowing what to do as she is a virgin. Throughout the film there are several stabbings and knifes can be seen as phallic imagery as essentially castrating a man. In the end scene we also see one of the monsters which is a unicorn stabbing a male character with its horn, these can also represent phallic imagery through the idea of penetration.