20 facts you might not know about ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ A lot of horror movies are by the book.. Scary dude in a…

Tom Lenk is widely loved by Buffy fans for his role as Andrew, which expanded from a fun side character into something far more integral as each season progressed. But there’s so much more to his career beyond Sunnydale.

Digital Spy caught up with Tom to discuss Buffy and his wider career highlights, including a brand new play called Lottie Plachett Took a Hatchet that’s currently part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme.

Drew Goddard’s 2011 horror/comedy “The Cabin in the Woods” is a fun, self-aware deconstruction of cabin-in-the-woods horror movies, a subgenre that has been lampooned more often than it has been presented earnestly. The film has an incredibly elaborate setup: A group of college kids is preparing for a vacation in the titular cabin. Each one of the kids fulfils a notable cinematic/literary archetype: The athlete, the fool, the scholar, etc, though they’re not full-on cliches, at least not yet. While they pack their bags and hit the road, the college kids are being secretly watched by a group of white-collar lab workers who have been covertly feeding them drugs and manipulating their behavior and their personality traits.

You may know Tom Lenk as Andrew, one of the trio in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or you may know him from his social media skits – some with celebrity guests in them (we speak to him about his Teen Witch sketch later on). Perhaps you know him from his comedy plays like Tilda Switon Answers An Ad On Craigslist, the hilarious story of a modern day Mary Poppins who finds a depressed gay man on Craigslist and insists on dissecting his life as part of a character study for her next big movie role.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Tom Lenk has recollected the time Sarah Michelle Gellar stood her ground to support him during filming, saying it ‘set the tone for how I want to treat other people when I’m working’.

Buffy star Lenk said about the slayers single status: “Amen, sister. I think years ago I would have been like, ‘She should have ended up with Spike.’

“But honestly, to quote that meme or tweet or whatever, ‘Honestly, you choose men in this day and age in this economy? You want to end up with a man? No thank you. Aren’t we over men?’

Lenk’s latest show Lottie Plachett too a Hatchet has been billed as a “high-camp” retelling of the Lizzie Borden story. For those not in the know, Borden became famous when she was tried and acquitted for the axe murders of her father and stepmother in 1982.

It might not sound like fertile ground for a camp extravaganza, but Lizzie Borden’s story is a unique one. In the near century since her death, she’s become a feminist icon in her own right, while others have imagined her as a queer legend.

Ahead of the Edinburgh Fringe, PinkNews caught up with Tom Lenk to talk about what makes Lizzie Borden a gay icon, the legacy of Buffy, and why he can’t watch horror.

In a brilliant twist on the genre, The Cabin in the Woods, gradually reveals that the hapless victims of a zombie onslaught are merely pawns in a mechanised ritual. They are sacrifices made to appease ancient Gods. While it is a clever critique of the often-formulaic rules of horror, such as typical character archetypes and dumb decisions, the film also still shows a deep love for the genre. The sheer variety of monster designs and effects that are shown off in the final ten minutes is staggering.

Despite releasing over a decade ago, the depth of The Cabin in the Woods’ horror satire and ending is still drawing discussion. Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods bends the horror genre n away that’s rarely done well, introducing subtle but persistent satirical subtext into what seems on the surface to be a relatively simplistic slasher. The film’s use of satire is ultimately what separates The Cabin in the Woods from its more self-serious contemporaries, securing the film a lasting legacy alongside the likes of Scream and The Evil Dead.

Acting as a Rosetta Stone for pretty much the entire horror genre The Cabin in the Woods pretty much stands as the perfect, unimpeachable capital-H Horror Movie, sure to satisfy any genre-savvy moviegoer fortunate enough to come across it. A pointed update to the New Nightmare (1994) or Scream (1996) styled meta-horror movies of the 1990s.