Here are pictures taken from “The Cabin in the Woods: The Official Visual Companion”
Quick descriptions of the pictures :
Picture 1 and 2: Picture of the Basement. In it we can see the pile of old-fashionned dolls and Venitian/carnival masks (among which is the specific mask that invokes the “Dolls” or the “Doll family”) ; all the film suit-cases and the projector which invoke Kevin, a box shape like a heart, and a strange lampe-like objects that I can’t quite identify.
Picture 3: Picture of the Merman about to devour Steve Hadley.
Pictures 4 and 5: Pictures of the Werewolf
Picture 6: A picture of the Basement. We can see Jules looking at the wedding dress on which is found the necklace (which could invoke the Bride), and in the background other elements such as a fan on the wall and a record player.
Pictures 7 to 9 : Pictures of the “Tarp Man” or “Man in Transparent Tarp”
Picture 10 is a concept art for a Mutant.
Fun facts and infos the book reveals:
# The book mentions the existence of the “vomitting mutants”, of the “kraken”, of the “evil clown”, of a “short version of a Reaver” and of zombies (mentionned with the “zombie stairwell feeding frenzy” scene). Are also mentionned the Killer Robot, the Giant Snake, Vampires (interestingly it is pointed out that vampires actually look “just like people” because they have a “Lost Boy” and “Goth” vibe to them), the Werewolf, the Unicorn, the Merman and the Ballerina.
# The Cabin in the Woods is a movie that was made and designed not to be watched but to be “rewatched” again and again, each time revealing a new detail, a new monster, a new clue hidden somewhere.
# Among the monsters, there is “The Huron”, which is “just an Indian”. The presence of this character was explained by him being the embodiment of the “fear of the early settlers. It was the thing they were scared of in the woods, the people to which the woods belonged”. It is also explained that the presence of the Huron was to highlight the evolution of this ancient ritual, “before the movies came”. A quite interesting mention when you remember that, in the movie, it is mentionned that the monsters are the things “nightmares come from”, aka the source of humanity’s fears - but in the interviews, it seems the filmmakers rather claim the monsters are born from humanity’s fears and culture.
# A very interesting piece of info : in the very early stages of development, the Merman was absent. The monster Hadley wanted so desperatly to see was going to be a Wendigo. However, this idea was abandonned when our filmmaking duo realized no one exactly knew what a Wendigo looked like - or rather no one could agree on a specific iconic look, or on a uniform description. So, they ditched it, and decided to go with something which had a more “iconic” look and that everyone could visualize just by name : a Merman.
# Hellraiser was a big influence on the movie, and “Buzzhead” (aka the Hell Lord) was a clear reference to Pinhead.
# The filmmakers spent a lot of time discussing how the “Doll People” (aka the Dolls aka the Doll family) should move. They wanted them to have a certain elegance and confidence that they were going to get their prey, and thus they never chased people down. They wanted them to have a slow walk, like artists, everything seeming like a big dance move - even as they are pouring gasoline on people.
















