Review of The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Seen in 2022.
National governments regularly stage secret human sacrifice events in accordance with local customs to appease evil gods. In the USA, the relevant local custom is patterned after popular horror films, specifically the low-budget rural creature feature.
In a movie where even the title screen is sound-edited as a jump scare, the plot is easily spoiled. If you take the premise to be important, and not simply an ironic variation, then the gods correspond to the audience watching The Cabin in the Woods. The blood sacrifice, rather than being expiating or propitiating, is then cast simply as an evening of genre entertainment. There is, unfortunately, no easier explanation for it. That explanatory model suggests that the audience should be disappointed with the film itself, and indeed I was.