The Cabin on the Screen: Defining the •Œcabin Horrorâ•Š Film
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Feature 01 over time. This is especially evident when considering all three films together, as the pure horror aesthetic of The Evil Dead shifts into comedy and self-reflexivity with Evil Dead 2 and The Cabin in the Woods. Through its function as a site of release for repressed desire, its hostile isolationist agency and its playful adaptability as a genre-spanning setting, the cabin is revealed to be a unique, enduring landscape of horror and the cabin horror film a distinct subgenre with its own conventions and modes, functioning perfectly as an evocation and microcosm of the horror genre itself. Before defining the specific attributes and conventions which make up the cabin horror A B OV E The cabin awaits film, it is necessary to first establish it as a valid subgenre, rather than a simple cycle or trend in horror. There are three specific pieces of evidence which substantiate this claim. The first is the cabin’s longevity in The Cabin on the Screen: contemporary horror film, from its birth in the 1980s to its resurgence in the 2000s. The cabin horror genre surfaced in the Defining the “Cabin 1980s with slashers and slasher-inspired films, such as The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980), and Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead (1988). Horror” Film Its oversaturation and decline in the late 1980s and 1990s might have signalled its By Matthew Grant end if it were a simple cycle or finite trend, but in the 2000s cabin horror experienced a renaissance with films such as Daniel KEYWORDS: Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, The Cabin in the Woods, Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s The Blair Witch Project (1999), Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever Robin Wood, repression, horror film, cabin horror, genre (2002), Rob Schmidt’s Wrong Turn (2003), David Koepp’s Secret Window (2004), Lars von studies Trier’s Antichrist (2009), Eli Craig’s Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010), and The Cabin in the Woods. Through A close EXamination horror film, imbuing the landscape itself The length of its presence in the horror of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) and with a vindictive spirit and secluding power. film landscape, as well as its return from its sequel, Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987), Finally, the cabin functions effectively as a oversaturation and obscurity, suggests that as well as Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the microcosm in which horror film tropes and the cabin horror film is a durable, distinct Woods (2012), it is possible to attain a more conventions can be tested, upheld, or revised subgenre on its own. unified understanding of the “cabin horror” film, its defining features, and its ability to BELOW Crossing the threshold accurately encompass the experience of viewing horror. Each of these three films skillfully uses the cabin as an isolated site of release for repressed desires. The cabin manifests these unsanctioned violent or sexual urges through its physical layout (a creepy, yet initially safe main floor juxtaposed against a hidden, mayhem-inducing basement) and inherent purpose (a place to transgress by partying, drinking, and having sex). In every film, the cabin and the surrounding wilderness gain a malevolent agency through their almost sentient role as obstacle and isolating influence. Doors slam shut, floorboards trip, and tree branches come to life with a vengeance in the cabin 5 Film Matters Spring 2014 ➜ Feature 01 Matthew Grant The second piece of evidence lies in the cabin horror film’s adaptability and fluidity Surplus repression is a societal tool which we enforce with other subgenres and genres proper. upon ourselves, determining acceptable social From its slasher origins and influences, to its forays into comedy (Evil Dead 2, Tucker and behaviors, including gender roles and dynamics of Dale), pseudo-documentary (The Blair Witch Project) and the art film (Antichrist), the cabin is power, as well as sexual practices and orientations. not bound by horror conventions and modes. Able to meld itself to other, disparate genres its true milieu, the family, is reflected in most important and insightful films of the while retaining its essential qualities, the its steady geographical progress toward cabin horror subgenre. Raimi’s The Evil Dead cabin horror film is both highly adaptable America” (18). The cabin represents the slow functions as the canonical beginning of the and tightly structured. This adaptability culmination of that progress. It is completely cabin horror film, growing out of the slasher signals both its power as a symbol of horror removed from the Gothic connotations of film and utilizing its conventions, but also and its enduring identity in the face of the European mansion or haunted house, presenting a markedly unique setting and competing genre conventions – attributes emphatically denying the traditional settings atmosphere. An examination of The Evil which again suggest the cabin horror film’s and class systems of earlier horror films. Dead is therefore necessary to understand the status as subgenre over cycle. Entirely contemporary and reflective of the slasher origins and symbolic divergence of Finally, the uniqueness of the cabin horror American middle class, the cabin functions the cabin horror subgenre. Evil Dead 2, made film’s setting contributes to its attainment of as a more relatable, realistic site of horror at the end of the first wave of cabin horror, subgenre status. An isolated cabin, removed and violence. For these reasons, cabin horror is important because it reveals the effects from society and any meddling institutions, must be defined as a distinct subgenre in of oversaturation and its representation on represents not only the American Dream modern horror film. film. An analysis of Goddard’s The Cabin in and its fulfillment, but also horror film’s As the primary focus of this article, The the Woods is essential because it functions as divergence from traditional Gothic settings. Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and The Cabin in the a perfect example of the new, postmodern, As Robin Wood suggests, “the process Woods are not only excellent examples of self-reflexive, self-referential cabin horror whereby horror becomes associated with the cabin horror film, but perhaps the three film, appearing as it does at the height of the current cabin horror renaissance. Together they encompass over three decades of cabin horror film, encapsulating the essence of the subgenre’s evolving history. With these three films as the focus of this article, it is possible to reach a more comprehensive, unified understanding of the cabin horror subgenre. The first defining quality of the cabin horror film is its function as a site of released repression. In his article, “An Introduction to the American Horror Film,” Wood posits that there are two types of repression: basic and surplus. Basic repression is necessary for the simple functioning of society and “civilized” human behavior, but surplus repression “is specific to a particular culture and is the process whereby people are conditioned from A B OV E The trapdoor bursts open with the release of repression earliest infancy to take on predetermined roles within that culture” (Wood 7–8). Surplus repression is a societal tool which we enforce upon ourselves, determining acceptable social behaviors, including gender roles and dynamics of power, as well as sexual practices and orientations. But, as Wood states, “what is repressed must always strive to return” (15); there is no better example than the horror film. In their subversive, taboo depiction of sex and violence, horror films run counter to the dominating discourse of surplus repression. As Wood goes on to suggest, “central to the effect and fascination of horror films is their fulfillment of our nightmare wish to smash the norms that oppress us and which our moral conditioning teaches us to revere” A B OV E Tree branches come to (15). Abject and cathartic, they function as a life with malevolent purpose largely passive, yet transgressive experience 6 Film Matters Spring 2014 Feature 01 The Cabin on the Screen: Defining the “Cabin Horror” Film BELOW Danger reaches out from the basement on monogamy and family there will be an enormous surplus of sexual energy that will have to be repressed” (15), the cabin horror film features young, virile and, most importantly, unmarried protagonists who journey to a secluded cabin in order to release their sexual urges and desires. Away from the strictures of society, these characters are finally free to release their inhibitions and satisfy their teenage urges. However, this pleasurable release comes at a cost as “the release of sexuality in the horror film is always presented as perverted, monstrous and excessive” (Wood 21). In The Evil Dead, protagonist Ash and his friends travel to the cabin with the express purpose of partying, drinking, and having BELOW A bloodied, but unbroken sex. For Ash and his girlfriend, their time at Ash the cabin is “the first chance [they have] had to be alone” and though they never fully act out their desires, their intentions are entirely clear. The group drinks and celebrates until one of them yells “Party down!” and the cellar door immediately and violently bursts open. Like popping a cork, their previously repressed desires are shown breaking loose in an incredibly visual, overtly physical way. This pattern is repeated again in Evil Dead 2 and The Cabin in the Woods, almost by rote. In The Cabin in the Woods, again “a group of college students – [this time clearly delineated as] the jock, the jokester, the promiscuous girl, the sensitive guy, and the virgin – set off to spend a weekend in solitude, drinking and dancing and engaging BELOW Ash struggles with the in premarital sex” (Cwik).