10 Greatest Monster Movies Of The 21st Century
4. The Cabin In The Woods
If the quality of a monster movie were measured on the sheer volume of nasty creatures appearing in the film, Cabin in the Woods would appear at the top of this list. If it were measured in the amount of ‘subverted horror tropes per second’, it’d still be top, and would probably spawn an entirely new list of exactly how many times it flips the genre on its head.
In one of the finest horror premises of the decade, The Cabin in the Woods is about a state-planned sacrifice. As a group of teens vacate to the titular cabin, they find themselves being hunted by various horror clichés, in an attempt to harvest their blood for the giant, looming ‘Ancient Ones’.
Although the Ancient Ones might be the only conventional giant monsters in the film, it’s packed with all kinds of inventive creatures, including mechanical lobsters, demons, a dragonbat, alien beasts, zombies, witches, and of course, the dreaded merman.
The entire movie is an inventive twist on the monster genre as a whole, but in paying homage to the likes of Evil Dead, The Hills Have Eyes and Godzilla, The Cabin in the Woods created even more interesting beasts of its own.