(Spoilers for Cabin in the Woods and Night in the Woods- these are both so much better if you go in blind!!)
I was kind of late on the game watching

Cabin in the Woods

But strangely, it feels just as relevant today as it might have ten years ago (fourteen, to be precise), and I can't stop myself from drawing comparisons to another teen cosmic horror that's making a comeback right now:

Night in the Woods

THE REAL MONSTER IS THE ADULTS IN CHARGE

Both CITW and NITW feature a similar premise: the adults in the room have decided that (a) there is an elder god that will protect their world from collapse and (b) the only way to keep this elder god in their favor is to sacrifice the children. In both cases, the powerful deity is hidden away, mostly only implied. Instead, the real malicious actors are the authorities who have convinced themselves that their world is worth clinging on to at any cost.

In CITW, we see these white-collared bureaucrats unleash vicious monsters and subject teens to horror-movie level trauma. It's gruesome, disgusting, and hardly a world that benefits anyone; Especially the people who have to put up with the sinking horror of trying to maintain it. The controllers are laughing and drinking and gambling, but every time something goes wrong in their horrific plan, you see the true desperation in their eyes that they're running from. They pray to evil gods and know that they will be punished for it.

In NITW, the world that is being protected from collapse is Possum Springs- and the game wants you to know that Possum Springs sucks. Through talking to the younger residents you see joblessness, abuse, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness. The favorite phrase of graffiti is "Nuke Possum Springs". Still, the council of elders insist that Possum Springs is just as glorious as it was in days past, before the coal mining stopped and the jobs dried up. They don't realize that they're clinging to a mummified corpse of a town.

Both of these stories present the same solution. It's a gut-wrenching decision made when the kids finally take control and unmask their puppeteers. Either decision both saves the world and dooms it. Paying into the system passes the responsibility and maintains the status quo of murder and monstery. Ending the horror dooms the world (literally, in CITW), but puts a stop to the cycle of corruption.

Maybe, if we're lucky, the end of the world isn't the end of the world?

I rate Cabin in the Woods four out of five merfolk and Night in the Woods five out of five nuclear bombs.