Most movies feature some sort of criticism of human vices, but it takes a special degree of boldness (and bitterness) for a film to attack its own audience. With that in mind, it’s shocking how many popular, mainstream films do just that, even if most of them do that through the dark little back alley known as subtext.

1. The Cabin In The Woods
   
     Underlying many of the greatest horror films, from Bride of Frankenstein to Rosemary’s Baby, is a contempt for man’s inhumanity to man. Underlying The Cabin in the Woods is contempt of man’s inhumanity to fictional characters. Pleading for more humane treatment of people who don’t exist is a strange brand of humanitarianism, but Lost writer Drew Goddard frames a lack of concern for our fake brethren as the cardinal sin of the entire horror genre.

The set-up is clever. Five teens, each of whom happens to be a common slasher film archetype (the jock, the good girl, the bad girl, the nerd, and the stoner) head to a cabin in the woods. Unbeknownst to them, their actions are being monitored by government agents working for Elder Gods who demand that the teens die cliché movie horror deaths lest they unleash their divine wrath upon the earth.

    According to writer/director Drew Goddard, the Elder Gods symbolize horror movie audiences and their sadistic need to watch people die. The scenarios the teens in Cabin find themselves in are littered with references to popular horror films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Evil Dead, and Hellraiser so that we know exactly which films Goddard thinks are contributing to this humanitarian crisis.

   
If you enjoyed any of the films Goddard references, or if you even went to see Cabin, be warned that you are a horrid sadist and need the help of a good psychiatrist, unlike Goddard, who made this violent picture.