If anyone reading this hasn’t seen “The Cabin in the Woods,” go correct that. It’s a wild movie, and the whole premise is a metaphor for horror movies as a genre.



Basically it’s a takedown of how formulaic horror movies tend to be. As it goes on, you can see the shadowy agents manipulating circumstances, and even the actions of the main characters, in order to make things play out closer to the genre cliches. Near the end, a character even breaks down the structure of the ritual and how the victims all fall into various archetypes, as well as the very specific type of person the “final girl” needs to be in order to be allowed to survive the ordeal, among other things.

The Old Gods are stand-ins for the audience, who will likely reject the movie if it isn’t what they expect to see. I once heard from someone who saw it in the theater that a couple sitting near them walked out after things started going off the rails, unwittingly demonstrating the movie’s point for it.

