Death of a Genre: How The Cabin in the Woods Magnifies Evil Dead’s Faults
Death of a Genre: How The Cabin in the Woods Magnifies Evil Dead’s Faults
The genre of horror is one to often go through periods of staleness. This was seen in the 1990s when multitudes of films tried to build new franchises, nearly all of which failed. In those moments, many articles are written with questions pondering if the genre is dead. Of course, when the genre rushes back into the zeitgeist with a hit film, as was the case in 1996 with Scream, or as seen last year with The Conjuring, those people are proven wrong. Horror is a genre that is always relevant, regardless of if it is a film reflecting the violent tensions of xenophobia, as was the case with Hostel, or if it is just an all-around good time like My Bloody Valentine 3D. However, The Cabin in the Woods, released in 2012, takes both of those concepts and combines them, managing to make a film with a message as an enjoyable piece of entertainment. This can be compared to the 2013 remake Evil Dead, which attempted to make something in the form of entertainment, but almost completely failed to do so. In fact, the faults of Evil Dead are exacerbated by the successes of The Cabin in the Woods, through the latter’s use of Structure of Feeling and poststructuralism.
Originally intended for release in 2010, The Cabin in the Woods, on the surface, appears to be a simple, trite horror film about five college students who are staying in some creepy cabin, deep in the woods and far from civilization. However, in reality, it is much more than that. The film has two parallel stories that become perpendicular. Alongside the five students are two men working for some mysterious agency, one that directly influences the plot of the students. On paper, it is hard to put into words; whereas the plot of Evil Dead, a 2013 remake of Sam Raimi’s 1981 film The Evil Dead, might as well not even be considered to exist. Technically the film involves five young people who arrive at some deserted cabin in the woods in order to assist one of them, Mia, in going cold turkey to stop using drugs. While horror films — or even films in general — do not need to be heavy on plot, the threads of Evil Dead ‘s faults already begin to appear here on a narrative level.
Evil Dead attempts to use drug addiction as a metaphor for the sheer chaos that occurs throughout the film; however, once the fountains of gore in the film begin to spew forth, it also manages to nearly drop the entire thread, and thus taking away any power it might have on the audience. The film believes that mentioning the drug addiction of Mia is the same as actively using it as a metaphor throughout. Furthermore, after the film lets the gears of the plot finally start up, it falls into a rinse and repeat cycle: someone becomes possessed and attempts to kill the other remaining, non-possessed characters in as gruesome a fashion as the MPAA will allow. Of course, this is not even the only time in which the film uses lip service as some sort of character and/or plot development. How this hurts the film should be obvious, but as an example, a supposed key emotional beat late in the film between Mia and her brother, David, absolutely fails to connect because the only scenes of bonding seen between the two are simple moments of exposition explaining how David has been away from her for a long time. However, the audience is never given a moment that actively shows David’s supposed love for Mia. This is far different than The Cabin in the Woods, which by and large makes good on the expression “show, don’t tell.”
Where Evil Dead cannot seem to grasp any sense of plot or building characters, The Cabin in the Woods appears to relish in it. This latter film understands that seeing how characters interact is far more gratifying to an audience than simply telling an audience that the characters care about each other. In fact, the introduction to the five central leads is all about giving an idea of how they relate to one another. For example, the playful, loving nature of Curt’s and Jules’ relationship is illustrated as the two pretend for a moment to not know one another, but all the while playing it tongue in cheek. This dedication is building a full world is handled through the film’s dedication to having an actual plot as well. As the five central leads attempt to survive the “zombie redneck torture family” that come after them, the other two main characters in the agency — ones who at first appear to be supporting characters — are trying to make sure they don’t survive; however, there is a moment in the film’s third act in which these two threads come together in a way that forces the viewer to reexamine what (s)he has just seen, even going so far as to force the viewer to reevaluate who the heroes in the story truly are. Again, while every horror film does not need a sprawling narrative, the audacity of The Cabin in the Woods makes the trite nature of Evil Dead feel like even more of a rehash than it already is.
This is because the former film uses Structure of Feeling to not simply deliver a piece of entertainment, but rather to deliver a piece of entertainment that is actually trying to examine why horror, and all of its conventions, is a necessary aspect of humanity. For this, the concept of poststructuralism is necessary. In the fiction of the film, the two men working at the agency are guiding the five college students to their deaths in order to please The Ancient Ones, who, if left unsatisfied without a proper sacrifice, will rise up and destroy Earth. However, in reality, the two men are representations of the film’s screenwriters: Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon, who have to please The Ancient Ones, or rather the audience watching the film. The entire film acts as a large metaphor for the importance of horror films and the metaphorical horrors within humanity that are kept at bay. When the two remaining possible sacrifices, Marty and Dana, choose to let humanity be run over by The Ancient Ones and the horrors they’ll unleash, it acts as a representation of the way the genre in reality can be tainted and harmed by those breaking away from tradition. Yet what is most important is that none of it would matter if the film somehow managed to be as trite as what it is critiquing. This message is not strictly that the archetypes of the genre are important, but also that they need to be done well.
Part of what needs to be done well is the subversion of expectations. In this way, horror and comedy are not dissimilar. Both are, in many ways, well-executed magic tricks, ones that make you look one way before being sucker punched from another. The Cabin in the Woods has this in spades, even on a basic character level. The five sacrifices are separated by their respective roles in the overall plot: the Whore, Athlete, Scholar, Fool, and Virgin. In their introductions, each character does not fit well into their roles. The supposed Virgin, Dana, has recently gotten out of an affair with a married professor. The supposed Whore, with stereotypical blonde hair, has only recently dyed her hair blonde. In fact, she only falls into the horror convention of being a “dumb blonde” because the agency has been tampering with her hair dye. And perhaps the greatest character breakaway the film employs is that of Marty, or the Fool, who ends up being the single smartest character in the film, unaffected by the actions of those in the agency. On the surface, he appears to be the archetypical stoner, yet he is the only one in the film to ever question why characters are changing personalities. Furthermore, as the characters fall prey to the agency’s actions and slip into their archetypes, it creates emotional strife within the audience.
The lack of subversion in Evil Dead creates a sense of bewilderment. What might be even stranger with the film is that it actually attempts to make a pretty big step toward some iota of subversion late in the film. It spends a majority of its runtime with David as the lead character, regardless of if it is ultimately Mia’s story — which is yet another example of poor design that runs rampant in the film. In fact, there is a large portion of the film in which Mia is delegated to the cellar under the cabin after becoming the first to be possessed. She is there, technically, as an active character, but her role takes on far less importance. However, the filmmakers decide, as a harebrained twist, to kill off David late in the film and allow Mia to be the newfound hero for the remaining fifteen minutes. What the film fails to understand is that there is no emotional connection to what is happening. Because she spends most of the film trapped in a cellar, essentially as a wholly different character, she has no arc in which she makes active steps toward overcoming her drug addiction. The subversive twist of hero/villain that happens late in The Cabin in the Woods works because the audience has spent time with its characters and all of their many shades of grey.
This issue of where the audience’s time is spent is also what allows The Cabin in the Woods to pull off its final act, which manages to be as bloody and gory as Evil Dead, but with an actual sense of payoff. At the end of The Cabin in the Woods, Marty and Dana descend beneath the cabin into the agency’s headquarters, eventually causing a “System Purge,” and unleashing a smorgasbord of nearly every horrific creature from a horror tale to ever be imagined. Because of its place in the film’s runtime, the audience has yet to be fully informed of the ultimate stakes at large. Therefore, there is a sense of glee as what the audience believes to be the villains get a form of comeuppance. Furthermore, the film, up to this point, plays it relatively safe in terms of frightening moments and outlandish kills that are so often found in the horror genre, which means the climatic System Purge works as a form of relieved tension as the film finally gives the audience — or rather, The Ancient Ones — what they want.
On the other hand, Evil Dead tries to work as an all-out assault on the senses from start to finish. Even before the title card of the film, the audience is beaten into submission with a loud score and over the top gore. It opens with a woman, seemingly innocent, running through the woods before being attacked and kidnapped. When she awakens, she’s tied to a post, revealed to be possessed, set on fire, and her head explodes after being shot with a shotgun by her father. The opening scene is largely indicative of the film’s overall problems, because none of it matters. The audience is thrown headfirst into chaos — which, admittedly, is admirable, albeit poorly handled — and, again, becomes a case of rinse and repeat. After the main characters begin to be attacked by unseen forces, causing self-mutilation and more, the film becomes an endurance test. As the levels of gore rise higher and higher, eventually ending in blood raining from the sky, the film becomes less and less occupied with making things matter. Characters, if they ever were characters, become a human countdown to the eventual finale; whereas everyone in The Cabin in the Woods remains someone of note up until his/her eventual demise. Furthermore, the film’s aforementioned finale in blood raining from the sky is never cemented in character. Therefore, when Mia shoves a chainsaw into the mouth of a previously unseen physical antagonist, it plays out like an asinine masturbatory fantasy rather than anything of worth to the world, or, more importantly, the characters.
That is not to say that scene could not work elsewhere, because that would be a lie. In fact, so much of Evil Dead could have been an entirely stronger film. In fact, not all of it is a creative disaster. There are a couple of solid performances, from actors doing all they can with nonexistent material. And the film’s commitment to practical effects is completely something of note in a world becoming more and more dominated by CGI. Yet what director Fede Alvarez failed to understand is that, while effects can be of great worth, it is characters and a solid story that matter at the end of the day. Here is where The Cabin in the Woods shines so much brighter, not even as a horror film, but also as something far more important. Through the use of Structure of Feeling and poststructuralism, The Cabin in the Woods creates a piece of entertainment that transcends genre and becomes something almost educational about humanity. If only those making Evil Dead could have taken notes.
Works Cited
Evil Dead. Dir. Alvarez, Fede. Prod. Bruce Campbell, Robert Tapert, and Sam Raimi. Perf. Jane Levy and Shiloh Fernandez. TriStar Pictures, 2013. Film.
Bignell, Jonathan. “Studying Television.” An Introduction to Television Studies. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2012. 12–33. Print.
The Cabin in the Woods. Dir. Goddard, Drew. Prod. Joss Whedon. Perf. Kristen Connolly and Chris Hemsworth. Lionsgate, 2012. Film.
Originally published at http://www.tumblr.com on December 5, 2014.
