Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's horror movie send-up The Cabin in the Woods is stuffed with references and tired tropes from decades of slashers, monsters movies, thrillers and, yes, even a few video games. In a video from Good Bad Flicks, narrator Cecil Trachenburg walks us through the many callbacks, shout-outs and parodies in the meta horror movie.
Some are fairly obvious, like the Pinhead-like Fornicus, Lord of Bondage and Pain, and nods to The Ring and Evil Dead. Others, like the cameos of special infected from Valve's Left 4 Dead may not have been so obvious during your first viewing of The Cabin in the Woods. If you're a fan of the movie, as I professed to be in our special Halloween podcast about all things scary and spooky, check it out — it might just turn you on to a must-watch horror film or two.
The Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard revealed in 2012 that an add-on for Left 4 Dead 2 was planned as a promotional tie-in for the film, but that MGM Studios' money troubles squashed the project.