The Cabin in the Woods

In an underground laboratory, engineers Gary Sitterson and Steve Hadley discuss plans for a mysterious ritual, after a similar operation in Stockholm has just ended in failure.

American college students Dana Polk, Jules Louden, Curt Vaughan, Holden McCrea, and Marty Mikalski are spending their weekend at Curt's cousin's cabin in the forest. From the lab, Sitterson and Hadley remotely control the cabin and manipulate the students by intoxicating them with mind-altering drugs that have effects such as hindering rational thinking and increasing libido. The lab departments take bets on what kind of monster will attack the students and discuss the failures of international operations. In the cabin's cellar, the group finds bizarre objects, including the diary of Patience Buckner, a cabin resident abused by her sadistic family. Dana recites incantations from the diary and inadvertently summons the zombified Buckner family.

Hadley releases pheromones to induce Curt and Jules to have sex outside. They are attacked by the zombies and Jules is decapitated while Curt escapes. Marty discovers concealed surveillance equipment in his room before being dragged off by a zombie. The lab workers learn that the rite in Japan has also failed, meaning that the American rite is "humanity's last hope". Curt, Holden, and Dana attempt to escape in their RV, but Sitterson triggers a tunnel collapse to block them. Curt attempts to jump a ravine on his motorcycle to seek help on the other side, but crashes into a force field and falls to his death. Holden and Dana realize that their experience is staged and controlled. As they try to escape in the RV, Holden is killed by a zombie, and Dana is attacked once the RV crashes into the lake.

The lab employees, seeing that Dana is the only survivor, celebrate the success of the rite, but are interrupted by a phone call from "The Director", revealing that Marty is still alive. Marty saves Dana and takes her to a hidden elevator he discovered. They descend into the lab and discover a large collection of different monsters locked in cages. Dana correlates them with the objects in the cabin's cellar and realizes that the objects determine which monsters are released. Cornered by security personnel, the pair release all the monsters, which wreak havoc and slaughter the staff; Hadley is killed by a merman while Dana accidentally stabs Sitterson, who bleeds to death.

Dana and Marty flee and discover an ancient temple, where they are confronted by The Director. She explains that worldwide annual rituals of human sacrifice are held to appease the Ancient Ones, a group of cruel subterranean deities. Each region has its own ritual, and the American ritual involves the sacrifice of five slasher film archetypes: the whore (Jules), the athlete (Curt), the scholar (Holden), the fool (Marty), and the virgin (Dana). The order of the killings is arbitrary as long as the whore dies first and the virgin dies last or survives. The Director urges Dana to kill Marty to complete the ritual and spare humanity, as all other rituals had failed that year. Dana is about to but is attacked by a werewolf, while Patience kills The Director; Marty proceeds to kill all except Dana.

Deciding that humanity is not worth saving at the price of human sacrifices, Dana apologizes to Marty for almost killing him and the two share a joint while awaiting their fate. The temple floor collapses and a giant hand emerges from the ground, destroying the facility and the cabin as the world ends.

With a production budget of $30 million, principal photography began on March 9, 2009, in Vancouver,[7] and concluded in May 2009. Joss Whedon co-wrote the script with Cloverfield screenwriter Drew Goddard, who also directed the film, marking his directorial debut. Goddard previously worked with Whedon on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel as a writer.

Whedon described the film as an attempt to revitalize the horror genre. He called it a "loving hate letter" to the genre, continuing:[8]

... it's a serious critique of what we love and what we don't about horror movies. I love being scared. I love that mixture of thrill, of horror, that objectification/identification thing of wanting definitely for the people to be all right but at the same time hoping they'll go somewhere dark and face something awful. The things that I don't like are kids acting like idiots, the devolution of the horror movie into torture porn and into a long series of sadistic comeuppances. Drew and I both felt that the pendulum had swung a little too far in that direction.

Concerning the sheer number of creatures to be designed and made for the film, AFX Studio's David LeRoy Anderson estimated that "close to a thousand" people were turned into one of around 60 different monster types.[9] The task necessitated renting a much larger facility to use as a workspace, as a crew of around 60 people were recruited. The producers told them to commence work on December 15, 2008, ahead of the official January 1, 2009, start date. They only completed the work by the March 9, 2009, production date because, as Anderson stated "We had nearly seventy people at peak, but in effect we had a hundred and forty people, because everybody had at least two jobs...it was crazy, but people had an incredible time...none of us are ever going to forget it, and we're never all going to be in the same room again."[10]

The underground complex, elevators, and the control room were all sets, but for several wide shots, the British Columbia Institute of Technology's Aerospace building was used. Production designer Martin Whist referred to Stanley Kubrick and commented: "It's very high-tech industrial, and it's a brand new building, never been shot in before...I wanted [the elevators] to be without any controls...to almost feel like a glamorized freight elevator...The lobby I wanted to look slightly utilitarian, contemporary and institutional...sharp and almost characterless."[11]

A tie-in of the film with the video game Left 4 Dead 2 had been planned, with the game seeing downloadable content based on the movie's settings. However, due to MGM's financial problems, the game content was cancelled, but Valve allowed the studio to use monsters from Left 4 Dead 2 to populate the monster cells at the end of the film.[12]

The Cabin in the Woods was slated for wide release on February 5, 2010,[13][14] and then delayed until January 14, 2011, so the film could be converted to 3D.[15][16] However, on June 17, 2010, MGM announced that the film would be delayed indefinitely due to ongoing financial difficulties at the studio.[17][18]

On March 16, 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported the following: "New (MGM) chief executives Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum are seeking to sell both Red Dawn and the horror film The Cabin in the Woods, the last two pictures produced under a previous regime, as they try to reshape the 87-year-old company."[19] A distribution sale to Lionsgate was announced on April 28, 2011,[20] with some industry news outlets reporting plans for a Halloween 2011 release.[21] On July 20, 2011, Lionsgate announced that they had acquired the distribution rights to the film and set a release date of April 13, 2012.[22] Goddard described the deal as "a dream," stating "there's no question that Lionsgate is the right home for Cabin...you look at all the films that inspired Cabin – most of them were released by Lionsgate in the first place!"[23] In an interview with Creative Screenwriting, Goddard focused on the advantages of the delayed release, saying, "Lionsgate came along and they were the best possible home for that movie. Had the bankruptcy not happened, we wouldn't have been in the right fit with the right people. Yes, it took two years longer than we wish it would've taken, but Lionsgate didn't make us change a frame and believed in what we were trying to do. If I had complained too much when MGM went bankrupt, we could have hurt ourselves. We just held firm that we believed in the movie and that we would find the right home and time, and it did. It's hard, but you have to be very patient in Hollywood."[24]

A surprise early screening of the film was held at the Butt-Numb-A-Thon in December 2011, attracting highly positive reactions.[25][26][27] The film later screened on March 9, 2012, at the South by Southwest film festival, also in Austin.[28]

On April 13, 2015, author Peter Gallagher filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in California federal court against the makers of the film.[60] Gallagher claimed that due to the similarities between the film and his 2006 novel The Little White Trip: A Night in the Pines, Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard had used his work without permission. The lawsuit demanded $10 million in damages.[61] Whedon and Goddard were named as defendants, along with the production company Mutant Enemy Productions and distributor Lionsgate.[60][62] The case was dismissed five months later.[63]

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• The Cabin in the Woods at IMDb
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• The Cabin in the Woods at AllMovie
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