The Cabin in the Woods is a long-delayed horror flick directed by Cloverfield screenwriter Drew Goddard and based on a script he co-penned with Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator (or, as he's better known nowadays, The Avengers director) Joss Whedon.

Starring in the film are likes of such Whedon show alumni as Fran Kranz and Amy Acker (Dollhouse) alongside a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth and several TV stars who've become bigger players since filming on The Cabin in the Woods took place a few years back.

Today, we have a new minute-long TV trailer for The Cabin in the Woods. It doesn't offer much in the way of new footage, though it does continue to emphasize (ad nauseum) the idea firmly established by the official trailer: this isn't the sort of "beautiful young people party in the woods, mayhem ensues" horror movie you've seen many a time before.

Check out the extended television promo for The Cabin in the Woods and see what we mean:

Cabin in the Woods appears to throw an almost purely sci-fi twist into the familiar cogs of its horror plot setup, rather than relying on purely supernatural forces (a la The Evil Dead) or a monster disguised as a "virus" (a la Cabin Fever). Similarly, said TCITW players are expected to be more sophisticated and sharp-witted than your average horror movie archteypes (even more so than the characters in the Scream movies).

Both Goddard and Whedon's strengths lie in their writing abilities, which bodes well for their Cabin in the Woods "experiment". In fact, there already looks to be a clever self-reflexive angle to the film's storyline, seeing how it revolves around people (the actors) being manipulated by powerful exterior forces (the filmmakers) for some twisted mysterious purpose (to entertain viewers).

cabin in woods joss whedon

Of course, whether or not throwing elements like enormous force fields - and backwards hillbillies who are actually in cahoots with (what appears to be) an elaborate conspiracy, ultimately helps or hinders Goddard and Whedon's attempt to reinvigorate tired horror movie clichés, remains to be seen.

We'll find out for certain if the pair have successfully bent the rules of the horror genre - or gone too far and broken them, resulting in an ambitious mess - when The Cabin in the Woods opens in theaters around the U.S. on April 13th, 2012.

Source: FEAR.net