Horror Legitimize and valorizes acts of violence
In most horror films, the actors are always expected to perform violent acts in order for them to survive from the supernatural monsters that they are faced with in their story paths. This is not any different in both Drew Goddard’s ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ and Marshall’s ‘The Descent’ where the characters engage in violent activities as a quest of trying to survive. In both these two works, there is the use of legitimized violence which is conducted in self-defence or in the defence of the other characters. Valorous violence happens when violence is conducted for noble causes which mainly involve matters of self-sacrifice and it is common in ‘The Descent’.
These two works have similar plots in that they present the story of two groups of people that are looking for fun experiences outside of their normal life situations and this is why they all choose camping in the woods as the ideal leisure activity. The fun leisure activity and destinations that they choose is soon turned to a horrific moment when they encounter supernatural monsters that terrorize them and lead to deaths of most of the characters even they fight hard to beat them and try to survive. Dana, Marty, Jules and the others in ‘The cabin in the Woods are forced to use legitimate violence while Sam, Juno, Sarah and the others in ‘ Descent’ use both legitimate and valorised violence as their defence mechanism.
In ‘The Descent’, the characters get trapped in a cave and they have to fight the crawlers that attack them as they try to fight for their lives and also find an exit. In the course of this attack, the characters are forced to make difficult decisions of engaging in violence in order to survive. Juno for instance fights relentlessly to ensure that Holly who is injured is not eaten by the crawlers, and even after Holly’s neck is ripped out and the crawlers start dragging the body; Juno still tries to fight the crawlers as a quest to try and save the body and she manages to kill one of the crawlers with her pickaxe (Marshall, n.p). In the process of all this, she accidently stabs Beth through the neck which leads her to run way out of fear of what she had done.
This can basically be described as an act of legitimate violence; Juno did choose to stab Beth, this was only an accident that happened as she was trying to save Holly. Another character in this film that brings out the concept of legitimized violence is Sarah that fights and manages to kill several crawlers that attack her (Marshall, n.p). Sam also brings out the concept of valorous violence where even after her throat is ripped by the crawler, she still fights hard knowing that she is dying to stab and kill the crawler just so that the others could escape.
Things are not any different in ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ where the characters choose to spend a peaceful weekend at a cabin in the woods away from their normal college life only to be faced with horrific experience. Legitimate violence in this film is experienced starting with when Jules and Curt are attacked by the zombies outside the cabin. Curt tries all his best to fight off the zombies just to save Jules where he also gets stabbed in the process (Goddard, n.p). In this case Curt chose to stay and fight back and help Jules while he had the chance of running to save his own life.
Another instance of legitimate violence is when Dana repeatedly stabs the zombie that stab Holden as they are trying to find an escape route from the basement (Goddard, n.p). This also happens when in the scene where she fights off the zombie in the RV. Both Marty and Dana bring out the concept of legitimized violence in the way that they fight together and kill the zombies as well as the other characters like Sitterson they try to survive in the last parts of the film (Goddard, n.p). The helpless nature of Marty is shown in the way that he is quick to save Dana from the werewolf even though Dana was ready to kill him in her confliction need to save humanity.
Both ‘Descent’ and ‘The Cabin in the Wood’ are horror films that help show the conflicting moral issues that horror characters are often faced with as they try to survive the horrors that they face in the events of the film. The characters in both these films are forced to kill and sacrifice themselves as they try to save one another from the supernatural beings that attack them which make the argument of legitimate and violence in horror movies valid. These characters had the option of steering away from the violence but they instinctively choose to fight back and engage in the violence just so that they can survive, which is very rationale.
Works cited
Marshall Neil. The Descent. Celador films Northmen Production, 6 July 2005,
www6.fmovies.to/film/the-descent.vqr6/p58n5x story:
Goddard Drew. The Cabin in the Woods. Mutant Enemy Production, 9 Mar.
2012, www6.fmovies.to/film/the-cabin-in-the-woods.6xjp/y28vyp.
