Sunday, August 25, 2013

Horror tropes / Cabin in the Woods and Fear Itself

Once again I'm late to the party - I watched Cabin in the Woods for the first time last night.

The thing that makes it an enjoyable film, in my opinion, is the clear love of standard horror movie tropes throughout. My wife and I were both delighted by the gas station in the beginning and it's treasure trove of creepy genre signposts: fish hooks, bear traps, animal skins, pickled creatures, hunting goods etc. I wondered aloud if they'd modeled the cabin on the one from Evil Dead. The scene where the victims choose the transgression for which they'll be punished is wonderful, as is Fran Krantz' line "I'm drawing a line in the sand, no one is reading any fucking Latin!"

The part that tied the film up to Fear Itself, for me, is the statement of specific roles within the genre:
The Whore / slut
The Scholar / egghead
The Warrior / jock
The Fool / burnout
The Virgin / good girl

Fear Itself uses these stereotypes to define character roles within the game with much the same effect as in Cabin...

The overall plot of Cabin is a nice fit with the classic Fear Itself Ocean Game setting: a mysterious and incredibly powerful consciousness horrifically manipulates reality around unsuspecting stereotypes for their own amusement and benefit / a mysterious and technologically advanced organisation manipulates unsuspecting teens into falling into stereotypical roles and controls the environment around them for their own amusement and benefit.

You could run a straight Cabin in the Woods game using Fear Itself with zero effort or adaptation, and you could overlay the Mystery Men and their Ocean Game onto Cabin with only a few tweaks.

6 comments:

  1. Man I love that movie. Not come across the game though, but I'm a fan of horror RPGs so I'll be checking it out shortly.

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    1. You definitely should. As added incentive, it's a short paperback book, about 90 pages, and costs around £10-£12.
      It's designed for short games and one shots and can be up and running in 15 minutes or less.
      Basically it is a game that recreates the doomed protagonists of every classic 70s and 80s horror movie you've ever seen.
      It even has done rudimentary psychic rules if you want to go all Carrie.

      Get it. Trust me. :-)

      Delete
    2. You definitely should. As added incentive, it's a short paperback book, about 90 pages, and costs around £10-£12.
      It's designed for short games and one shots and can be up and running in 15 minutes or less.
      Basically it is a game that recreates the doomed protagonists of every classic 70s and 80s horror movie you've ever seen.
      It even has done rudimentary psychic rules if you want to go all Carrie.

      Get it. Trust me. :-)

      Delete
  2. You must watch Tucker and Dale vs Evil as a counterpoint though - Fliss

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    Replies
    1. I've not watched that. I'll check it out

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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