Plot
Technicians Gary Sitterson and Steve Hadley prepare for an operation, one of several taking place around the world, while joking with fellow technician Wendy Lin.
College students Dana Polk, Holden McCrea, Marty Mikalski, Jules Louden, and Curt Vaughan go to a remote cabin in the woods for a vacation. The technicians control the environment the group are in from afar and give them mood-altering drugs to make them more likely to venture into the cellar and do something that will lead to "punishment." The drugs gradually reduce the group's intelligence and awareness, and also increase their libido. After entering the cellar, the group discovers a large assortment of items, including a diary by Patience Buckner, a girl abused by her sadistic family. Reciting an incantation from the diary, Dana inadvertently summons the zombified Buckner family.
Curt and Jules, influenced by more mood-altering drugs, go outside to have sex. The Buckners attack the lovers and kill Jules, but Curt flees to the cabin and informs the group of Jules' death. Marty, who frequently smokes marijuana, becomes paranoid, and believes they are being manipulated. Discovering a hidden camera, Marty thinks that he is on a reality television show, but is attacked and dragged away by Judah Buckner. Holden, Dana, and Curt attempt to flee in their RV, but the technicians are able to trigger a tunnel collapse in time to block their path. Curt attempts to use his motorcycle to jump a ravine in order to escape only to crash into an invisible force-field and fall to his death. Realizing that something is unusual about the environment, Dana becomes convinced that Marty's worries about them being manipulated were correct. While driving back to the cabin, Holden is killed by Father Buckner who has been hiding in the RV. The RV falls into the lake and Dana swims away, only to be attacked by Matthew Buckner on the dock.
The technicians celebrate the completion of the scenario, but a phone call informs them that Marty is still alive. Arriving at the dock, Marty saves Dana from Matthew Buckner. He reveals that he dismembered his assailant after being dragged away, stumbled upon a hidden control box, and was able to access an underground elevator. The technicians realize that Marty is immune to their drugs because of his marijuana use. Marty and Dana take the elevator down to the lower levels of the facility, passing a variety of imprisoned monsters (which are parodies/homages of classic movie monsters). Dana sees Fornicus: Lord of Bondage and Pain holding a circular puzzle that she remembers seeing in the cabin's cellar, and she realizes that the items in the cellar determine which monster will be released. A security team then corners her and Marty, but she uses a button in the control station called "System Purge" to release the monsters, which massacre the facility staff. Hadley, Lin, and Sitterson are killed in the carnage. Dana flees to the lower levels of the facility with Marty.
Discovering a temple adorned with large stone tablets, Dana and Marty meet the Director. They are informed that the scenario is to appease the "Ancient Ones", beings who live beneath the facility and are kept in perpetual slumber through an annual pars pro toto ritual sacrifice of five young people who embody certain archetypes: the Whore (Jules), the Athlete (Curt), the Scholar (Holden), the Fool (Marty), and the Virgin (Dana). The order in which they die does not matter, as long as the whore is first and the virgin is last, and her death is optional, as long as she suffers. Should the Ancient Ones awake, they will destroy the world. The Director reveals that rituals around the world have been taking place for the same purpose, but each of them failed. The Director urges Dana to kill Marty to complete the ritual. Dana draws a gun on Marty, but is attacked by a werewolf while the Director fights with Marty. Patience Buckner arrives and kills the Director before Marty pushes them both into the pit of an Ancient One.
Marty forgives Dana for threatening to shoot him. The pair accepts that it might be better for another species to take humanity's place if this is the price of its continued existence. Marty and Dana light a joint and hold hands as the gigantic hand of an Ancient One rises up, destroying the facility and the cabin.
Read more about this topic: The Cabin In The Woods
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
They carry nothing dutiable; they won’t
Aspire, astound, establish or estrange.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“There comes a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)