[5] It stars Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, and Bradley Whitford.

The plot follows a group of college students who retreat to a remote cabin in the woods where they fall victim to a variety of monsters while technicians manipulate events from an underground facility for a global purpose.

Goddard and Whedon, who previously worked together on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, wrote the screenplay in three days,[6]: 13  describing it as an attempt to "revitalize" the slasher film genre and as a critical satire on torture porn.

The film was originally slated for release on October 23, 2009, which was later delayed to February 5, 2010,[8] by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and United Artists (UA), but was indefinitely shelved due to financial difficulties.

In an underground laboratory, engineers Gary Sitterson and Steve Hadley discuss a mysterious ritual, after a similar operation in Stockholm just ended in failure, leaving only their facility and one in Japan to undertake the process, and with the latter holding a perfect record.

Cornered by security personnel, the pair release all the monsters, which wreak havoc and slaughter the staff; Hadley is killed by a merman and Dana accidentally stabs Sitterson.

Deciding that humanity is not worth saving, Dana and Marty apologize to each other and share a joint as the temple floor collapses and a giant hand emerges from the ground, destroying the facility and the cabin.

Joss Whedon co-wrote the script with Cloverfield screenwriter Drew Goddard, who also directed the film, marking his directorial debut.

The things that I don't like are kids acting like idiots, the devolution of the horror movie into torture porn and into a long series of sadistic comeuppances.

Drew and I both felt that the pendulum had swung a little too far in that direction.Concerning the sheer number of creatures to be designed and made for the film, AFX Studio's David LeRoy Anderson estimated that "close to a thousand" people were turned into one of around 60 different monster types.

"[6]: 153 The underground complex, elevators, and the control room were all sets, but for several wide shots, the British Columbia Institute of Technology's Aerospace building was used.

[17][18] On March 16, 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported the following: "New (MGM) chief executives Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum are seeking to sell both Red Dawn and the horror film The Cabin in the Woods, the last two pictures produced under a previous regime, as they try to reshape the 87-year-old company.

[28] Both the DVD and Blu-ray feature an audio commentary by Goddard and Whedon, several featurettes, a documentary about the making of the film, and a Q&A session at the 2012 WonderCon convention.

[35] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars, saying that "The Cabin in the Woods has been constructed almost as a puzzle for horror fans to solve.

Travers praised Kristen Connolly and Fran Kranz for their performances, and wrote, "By turning splatter formula on its empty head, Cabin shows you can unleash a fire-breathing horror film without leaving your brain or your heart on the killing floor.

He cited the "witty banter, creative twists" and "clippy, quippy dialog that lifted Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to cult status.

[It] comes not only to praise the slasher-, zombie- and gore-fests of yore but to critique them, elaborating on their grammatical elements and archetypal figures even while searching for ways to put them to novel use.

"[41] SF Gate said, "The cliches come at an onslaught pace" in "a wonderfully conceived story that gives a bigger than life and fascinating explanation for why so many horror movie cliches exist in the first place... By the time the ride is over, director Drew Goddard and co-writers Goddard and Joss Whedon will change course three or four times, nodding and winking but never losing momentum.

"[42] Of the screenplay by Goddard and Whedon, a CNN reviewer praised "these horror hipsters' acidic, postmodern designs on one of the movie industry's hoariest, least respected staples... the dialogue is always a notch or three smarter and snappier than you'd expect.

Cabin touches on everything from the Evil Dead and Friday the 13th to the mechanized mutilations of the Saw series while digging deeper into the Lovecraftian roots of horror in an attempt to reveal what makes the genre work...

"[44] In a more mixed review, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, calling herself "a wised-up viewer," gave the film a "B−" grade and said, "The movie's biggest surprise may be that the story we think we know from modern scary cinema—that horror is a fun, cosmic game, not much else—here turns out to be pretty much the whole enchilada."

"[48]On April 13, 2015, author Peter Gallagher filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in California federal court against the makers of the film.

[59] Gallagher claimed that due to the similarities between the film and his 2006 novel The Little White Trip: A Night in the Pines, Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard had used his work without permission.