10 Times Horror Movies Got Weapons Wrong
3. A Bear Trap On A Chain Is A Terrible Projectile - The Cabin In The Woods
The Cabin in the Woods does a fantastic job of subverting genre expectations, though not in the highly improbable weapon stakes, unfortunately.
The hapless protagonists soon enough find themselves set upon by the zombified Buckner family, worst of all Mathew (Dan Payne), the most violent of the lot who stalks the youngsters with a broken bear trap attached to a chain.
Basically, Buckner uses the chain to launch the bear trap at his chosen target in the hope of embedding it in their back, rendering them helpless as he goes in for the kill, as happens to poor Jules (Anna Hutchison) in the film.
It's a "nice" idea in theory, except that even if you're strong enough to hurl a bear trap - which typically weigh up to 40 pounds, mind - there's virtually no chance of it picking up enough velocity in mid-air to successfully embed itself in a victim's body, especially while they're most likely running away
More to the point, bear traps are dangerous less for the sharpness of their teeth and more for the spring-powered "mouth" which forces both sides of the trap to clamp down together.
In this case, the spring mechanism clearly isn't functional, and given that bear traps are designed to clamp down on limbs, the movie makes a busted bear trap look a whole lot more dangerous than it actually is.
Honestly, a chained bear trap would be a lot more effective as a bludgeoning weapon than one intended to actually immobilise targets. Then again, in a movie with so many wild twists and turns, this inaccuracy isn't exactly a tough pill to swallow.