10 Best Comfort Horror Movies

Buffy alumni Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon's The Cabin In The Woods (2011) assembled a killer cast comprising Whedon regulars and horror and sci-fi big-hitters, such as Sigourney Weaver, Amy Acker, Fran Kranz and Chris Hemsworth, to fight off every kind of evil imaginable.

A group of young friends go on a break to a remote cabin, where they encounter all manner of strange objects, unseasonable weather and creepy entities. Turns out, they're the next sacrifice in a scheme of manufactured scares designed to appease the Ancient Ones, a race of godlike beings who slumber beneath the earth's surface, requiring ritual sacrifices every year to keep them chipper.

Capitalising on the audience's knowledge of the horror canon, the film draws on influences as diverse as Hellraiser, American Werewolf In London and The Evil Dead in order to assemble the meta horror to end all meta horrors, all wrapped within the eternal horror trope of the titular isolated cabin in the woods. It's got demonic puzzle cubes, zombie hillbillies, mermen and even an evil unicorn. Basically everything you need for a good night in.

Something about the familiarity of the film's terrors makes an endearing and comforting watch, opening us a window behind the blood and guts, where we can watch in safety as the world tears itself apart. And good riddance to it.