10 Movies That Hated Their Own Audience

The Cabin in the Woods is one of the most memorable and inventive horror films of the last decade, albeit one that was marketed to appeal to precisely the sort of audience member it was actually criticising.

Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's horror-comedy is a not-so-subtle satire of the horror genre, taking a traditional attractive-teens-in-remote-cabin scenario and infusing it with a sci-fi twist.

As it turns out, a secret organisation is manipulating the film's events in order to facilitate an annual sacrifice to a fleet of evil gods known as the Ancient Ones, who if not appeased will destroy the world.

It doesn't take too much thinking to figure out that we, the audience, are the Ancient Ones, voraciously craving generic blood 'n guts entertainment.

And the delicious irony is therefore two-fold - firstly, the film's marketing drew upon familiar genre elements in order to lure in the casual horror crowd, and secondly, it managed to hold audiences to account while actually delivering a creative genre film in the process.

Though The Cabin in the Woods was warmly embraced by more self-aware genre fans, it's fair to say that it harboured a clear hatred for those Friday night casuals who just came to see a generic cabin-set gorefest, and were probably left totally flummoxed by the meta twist.