Unspoken comfort is found in the clearcut dichotomy between right and wrong. The idea that a topic or issue can fit snuggly into one of those two boxes without moral ambiguity makes the world easier to live in. Of course, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, there is such a thing as a “necessary evil”. Cruelty that must occur to stall a far worse outcome, even if it’s at the expense of morality. Drew Goddard’s directorial debut, The Cabin in the Woods, understands this twisted logic. While presenting a movie that deconstructs horror films and deals with fantastical elements, it also deals with sympathetic villains through an unconventional early reveal and the differing ideologies of youth versus maturity. The result is a moral gray area between good and evil when both sides are justified and are merely fighting for survival.
Following the standard slasher formula, the film follows five college students as they go up to the secluded titular cabin to unwind and cut loose. After rummaging around in the cellar that sporadically opens, they find a diary that, unbeknownst to them, awakens the pain-worshipping, zombified family of the Buckners. However, even more unbeknownst to the college kids, the zombies aren’t the result of supernatural forces. They’re unleashed by bored, 9-to-5 office workers Hadley (Bradley Whitford) and Sitterson (Richard Jenkins), who have eyes on everything and control the kids’ every move. Except they’re not trying to kill them for pleasure. They’re doing it as an offering to satiate the gods that used to rule the planet. Either they die, or the world is doomed.
The Cabin in the Woods has an unconventional method of dolling out information. Other movies with the lead characters trapped in an environment against their will have the audience in the dark as well as the characters. That way, the viewer can relate to the protagonist and learn the predicament alongside them. The revelation is often saved for the halfway point, like The Truman Show, or as a lead into the final act, like Don’t Worry Darling. In either case, the reveal of the world recontextualizes the story and the characters within it and acts as a narrative domino effect. If done well, the more we know, the more the preceding events make sense, and the more exciting it is to see the protagonists try to escape. What’s different here is that we don’t learn about the world along with the characters. From the beginning, we’re told what’s going on, and we understand what’s happening to the kids in the cabin while they have no idea. It’s what everyone’s high school English teacher would refer to as dramatic irony.
What this early reveal does is create sympathy for the real “monsters” of the film. The movie opens with bloody and grotesque images of ritual sacrifices to a hard cut of Hadley and Sitterson getting coffee in the breakroom and talking about Hadley’s wife baby-proofing their home. If you missed the film’s opening seconds, you wouldn’t even know it’s a horror movie based on the first scene. The two of them are in button-down shirts and ties and talking about relatable problems in an office space environment. This immediately conveys the idea that the people working in The Facility—as it’s referred to on its Fandom page—may have cruel intentions, but they still are just that: People.
The choice to have compassion for the villains was a deliberate one by Goddard. In the film’s audio commentary, he makes several references to his hometown of Los Alamos, New Mexico, which was the inspiration for The Facility. The visual style was based on what he saw on a tour of the Los Alamos Museum, which he gave notes to his production designer, Martin Whist. However, the more critical angle was what Los Alamos is famous for and how that feeds into the characters, “I grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where they make atomic weapons, that’s the whole town. You’ve got guys like Hadley and Sitterson who just go to their jobs every day, and they’re wonderful people, but their job is to make weapons of mass destruction.” The people who work in The Facility may be detached from the work they do, even betting on how the kids choose how they’re going to die, but it’s a coping mechanism to deal with the job, like Wendy Lin (Amy Acker) tells Truman (Brian White), “It’s just people letting off steam. This job isn’t easy, however these clowns may behave.” It’s clear that they’re not devoid of empathy, as seen when Hadley and Sitterson are visibly shaken following the execution of Jules and pray to the deities that they’re satiating. Just because it’s their job to kill people doesn’t mean they gain any joy from the act. It’s all just a means to avoid an apocalyptic end.
That empathy for the antagonists is evident throughout the film, and the scene that best conveys the wavering line of allegiance between the two parties is the Rambler escape scene. Following the (alleged) death of Marty (Fran Kranz), the three remaining victims get into the Rambler and attempt to escape from the cabin. Back at The Facility, Hadley realizes that the tunnel, which is the only way out and should have already been blown hours prior, is wide open. If the kids get through, the sacrifice fails, and the world will end.
So, Sitterson races down to engineering to try to blow the tunnel before the kids escape. This set piece is vital because when you get down to it, both parties are right in this scenario. There are multiple layers of tension because the kids have to escape; otherwise, they’ll be trapped and will definitely be killed. Simultaneously, Sitterson has to stop them; otherwise, the world will end, even though the audience doesn’t realize the stakes are that high. What we do know is that he and Hadley are desperate for them not to escape. What’s important is that they’re both fighting for their survival, and it’s imperative that they both succeed. This creates wavering loyalty from the viewer because, naturally, one side has to lose, but you understand why both sides are doing what they’re doing.
Where the scrutiny lies is in their hypocritical approach to punishment. The sacrifice operates under the blanket of the kids making choices of their own free will. Like Sitterson and Hadley tell Truman, “We rig the game as much as we need to, but in the end, they don’t transgress—They can’t be punished.” They’re like John Milton (Al Pacino) in The Devil’s Advocate (1997); they may set the stage, but they let the kids choose for themselves… except they don’t. Not only do Hadley and Sitterson guide the kids’ decisions, but they force their will onto them and deliberately cheat until they get the desired outcome. This point is hammered home in two key scenes.
The first is “The Harbinger” scene. This point in the sacrificial process is meant to be a warning to tell the kids not to go to the cabin, and it’s their chance to avoid their fates, or as Sitterson puts it, “It’s this creepy old f***, practically wears a sign, ‘You will die.’ Why do we put him there? The system. They have to choose to ignore him, and they have to choose what happens in the cellar.” This makes sense in theory, but their interaction with the Harbinger (Tim De Zarn) doesn’t convey that intent. The Harbinger parallels Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) in Friday the 13th (1980), who warns the camp counselors that they’re doomed. The difference is that while Crazy Ralph is…well, crazy, he at least warns the kids that they’re in danger; it’s just his strange ramblings that make them not take him seriously. However, the camp counselors hear the risks from the level-headed townsfolk and still choose to ignore the warnings. The Harbinger never does that. He mentions the ever-changing owners but never informs them that they’re in danger. Even if he did, he’s overtly aggressive toward each character, Jules specifically. The fact that they ignore him isn’t because of the lack of hindsight; it’s because they’re lacking a credible source with a clear warning.
The other key example is the sex scene between Jules and Curt. Being “The Whore” in the sacrifice, Jules has to promiscuously engage with Curt before being killed. She has to be corruptible before she can be killed for being “corrupted” as The Director (Sigourney Weaver) puts it. The thing is that she isn’t corrupted. While she and Curt are running around the woods, he makes two advances, and both times, she rejects him. The first time is because it’s cold, and the second is because it’s dark and they’re in the woods. She changes her mind only when Hadley and Sitterson adjust the climate, presents a romantically-lit moss bed, and disperses pheromone mists into the air. It’s only then she engages with Curt and can be murdered by the Buckners. They have to alter the environment around her and use chemical agents—not including the ones already implemented by the blonde hair dye to lower her IQ and increase her libido—to force her to perform an act that they deem is wrong and then punish her for doing so. She doesn’t make a choice of her own free will; she’s being judged while having the illusion of it.
The reality is that they need to stack the deck in their favor because they need to win. Even with all their oversight and the technology at their disposal, they’re not infallible. They may deal in magic and monsters, but Hadley and Sitterson have no magic of their own. This makes them relatable; they’re just two guys doing their jobs. The main thing separating them from an average Joe is that getting fired from their job means the agonizing death of every creature on the planet. When the stakes are that high, and it falls on you, moral flexibility and a penchant for cruelty are definitely in the job requirements. This might not necessarily make them “good” and, if anything, their existence is more based on logic than ethics—weigh the lives of five college students versus eight billion people—but ask yourself, if you were in their shoes, would you play fair?
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