Metahorror and Simulation in the Scream Series and The Cabin in the Woods

Abstract

In this chapter I want to focus on several recent instances of metahorror: films overtly concerned with the horror genre and its conventions. As the films examined here were all released after the postmodern critique of metanarrative, the term metahorror in reference to them should receive the following qualification: while the films self-consciously refer to their own construction and the rules within which they operate, they do not therefore escape from that structure; their self-reflexivity is itself a part of their construction, and they do not in any real way break through the fourth wall. In this sense, these films are properly deconstructive; they expose the limits of the narrative structure in which they operate and thereby open up an internal space of play; they are at once definers of the genre and moments or examples of it.