Cabin Fever Movie Review:


I had the high honour of watching Cabin Fever with its director Eli Roth, and despite him being a thoroughly nice guy, I wanted to remain focused on the film and give it a fair review. So here goes...

On pitch level, Cabin Fever doesn't strike you as particularly original. A group of young, dumb teens go to a cabin in the middle of the woods, get drunk, have sex and do all the things that teens want to do if only there blasted parents weren't around. After the first night, where naturally the group argue and start dividing into their genre characters: surf boy/jock, slut, virginal pure girl, doofus/comedy element and of course, the normal guy.
What happens then? Well, naturally, one by one they start dying.

I haven't spoilt anything here for you; it's a template that's been used to great effect in the horror genre over the years, and one that director Eli Roth clearly embraces. What makes Cabin Fever different from your average (and below average) slasher type movie, is that he cares. He truly cares and loves the genre. It's obvious one of his favorite films of all time is The Evil Dead - Cabin Fever could be this generation's ultimate version of it.

Despite its apparent low budget, the film makers try to make everything count, whether it be the location, the 'killer' of the film, the make up/effects or the cast. It hasn’t got the gloss and high appeal of say Final Destination, and I think its box office might reflect that, but it will garner a following, and probably gain a certain cult status - much the same as Donnie Darko has. Heck, there’s even a bunny man in there...watch out for him...

Speaking of Donnie Darko, it's interesting to note that film's writer/director Richard Kelly has hitched up with Eli Roth to collaborate on a script called 'The Box' (something Kelly hasn't done before apparently). Two soul-mates finding each other and pouring their love of all things dark and sick onto the page - now that's gonna be a movie that people will want to watch! Roth has also joined forces with Scott Spiegel to start Rom Nerve Films, and we can expect three movies a year from these guys - all in the same vein as Evil Dead, The Thing and...Cabin Fever.

What raises Cabin Fever's stock above other similar budgeted type movies is the cast. No-one is a mega star - Rider Strong is in Boy Meets World, but he's not in the same bracket as Brad Pitt (yet). It would have been easy for the cast to have delivered their lines, waiting for their moment of glory (and death), but they don't. You can see them really trying hard, and that's fantastic to watch. Out of the main five, Strong holds the ensemble together, but it's James DeBello who people will remember - and he only got the part because he's a mate of the director, but its good fortune for all. There's absolutely no reason for this character to be with two couples, and he's one that causes friction from the first minute, but along with a few laughs, he's the most proactive character in the first act - almost everything that befalls the group is because of something he's done. The other guy in the pack is Joey Kern, he didn't quite nail it for me, and he kept freaking me out because he looked like Ted Lavine of Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill fame (Silence of the Lambs). Maybe he could do a prequel to Lambs, and keep De Laurentiis in Meals on Wheels vouchers...

Outside of the main five, the supporting players make up the townsfolk where the woods back on to. The interaction with these characters is almost dream-like as they say and do things that seem totally off-centre, and many of their actions will leave your head reeling - but heck, if that's what they're like in the back woods of middle America, then I for one ain't going there...Deliverance is an obvious choice of film to tag the locals with, but there's something more (or less) to them than those bad, bad folks who like men to squeal like pigs. No, these guys have a simple mentality of protecting their own, and not liking outsiders. Only the wacked out local policeman 'Winston' has any fondness for the groups of teens that come "to party!" Even despite his 'innocence', he's certainly not someone you want to meet in the woods at night. All the scenes with these locals are well handled, a touch of humour, and a touch of menace. You're never quite sure whether the end of the scene will be a laugh or a scream. Because of this quality though, each time we return to the kids in the wood, you do start the scene fidgeting because of the familiarity of the set up from other movies, but on the whole, the film makers manage to drag you out of your slumber and shock you with something.

One more department should be noted for their hard work. The make-up/effects are back to basics - no CGI in this film! - But they're more than effective, and it's because of the way they are handled that makes them so accomplished. You'll have buckets of blood for those that demand it, but there's a nifty line in 'dissolved skin revealing lower jaw line' also, that had most people squirming.

All in all Cabin Fever is a nice little movie. It's not fantastic and a must see. It's not gonna get people in to see who don't normally watch this kind of movie. It's not gonna take the world by storm and become a cultural phenomenon...but it's a heck of a lot better than The Blair Witch Project and Jeepers Creepers.

If you like this kind of genre/movie, you'll be going to see it anyway, but if you're after a nice little scary movie made by someone with genuine and obvious passion for films, then this is certainly the one for you.

As a footnote, Eli Roth mentioned that Lion's Gate Films are really chuffed with the end result and will push for instant sequels. He's not gonna play ball though - "good sequels come four or five years after the original, like The Evil Dead and of course, Star Wars". He is willing to write one for them though...let's just hope it's better than every sequel of modern horror times.

Tyler Durden

Celebrating their graduation Paul (Strong), Karen (Ladd), Jeff (Kern), Marcy (Vincent) and Bert (DeBello) rent a woodland cabin. When an extremely ill hermit covered in bloody lesions interrupts their first night of partying begging for help, the five friends are spooked and try and drive him away, not wanting to catch whatever he is suffering from. Thinking they are safe they return to their vacation not knowing that one of them has caught the illness and they all could now be exposed.

The renaissance of the horror movie on the big screen has been promised for a long time but Hollywood has failed to deliver as the quality scares have been coming from Asian cinema. Fright fests like Ringu (The Ring), Dark Water and The Eye have terrified audiences worldwide and Hollywood has taken notice by buying the remake rights. But what of the more home grown US horror movie?

Originality seems to be a major problem for the genre in the States. Beautiful young people are the only prey, monsters roam their streets and High Schools and gore is their stable diet. Jeepers Creepers, Freddy Vs Jason, and Final Destination, the list is endless and there is nothing to differentiate between any of them. Cabin Fever is no different.

While it has a slight air of originality when it comes to the killer, a deadly virus, the rest of the movie is nothing new. Five young friends renting a cabin in the woods, where the locals are slightly strange and untrusting of strangers. The film combines so many elements from other movies that nothing is new and there are no real surprises.

The performances are fine and the actors do their best with a very limited script. Cerina Vincent and Jordan Ladd are very attractive and successfully put across the feeling of fear. Rider Strong isn’t a bad lead as Paul but James DeBello is a tad annoying, making you wonder why the rest of the friends wanted him around.

As with a lot of movies in this genre, plot points are never really truly explained. Where did the virus come from, what is it, why do people still drink unfiltered or cleaned water? The list goes on. A lot of these questions have to be asked to co-writer/director Eli Roth. While he gives the movie a great look and style, the lack of coherent plot details and sloppy editing make the film abit of a mess. You can tell he is trying to pay homage to 1970s horror movies and he even throws in a couple of plot twists but his doesn’t make the film anything more than average.

American horror movies are in need of a huge injection of originality. Once they can move away from the clichéd killing of young people and offer us some genuine frights for our money, they will just have to rely on the more creative foreign filmmakers to produce movies that they can buy the rights to remake.

Star Rating = * *

Jamie Kelwick

What do you do when someone in pain begs for your help?
“Please, I need a doctor!”
Human instinct kicks in and you more than likely assist.
What do you do if that person crying for help appears to be disintegrating before your eyes, a mass of blood clots and decomposing flesh?
In their final moments of pain and terror, they crave human compassion and edge closer to their only hope of salvation…
Repelled, you back off. Flee, and tell them to “get the fuck away” from you.
You can’t help, ‘cos your gut fear of agony and death overwhelms the pity. No matter if the person is your closest friend or lover.

Don’t be misled by the premise though, this movie is laced with outrageous mischief.
It is unashamedly influenced by the schlocky thrill-fests of the late Seventies and early Eighties…”Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Last House on the Left”, “Evil Dead” et al.
Movies where handsome college meatheads and glamour-puss girlies in “Daisy Dukes”, with pert breasts (the close-ups leave you in no doubt!) take road trips through Hicks-ville…and stop off somewhere ‘harmless’ for a night of unexpected debauchery and disembowelment to a bluegrass, banjo soundtrack.
The only difference is that the main threat to their mortality is not slack-jawed locals with a penchant for fashioning clothes from their skin – it’s the flesh-munching virus in the woods.

That’s Cabin Fever.

Cabin Fever is shot predominately with a soft, dew - kissed lens. The sun shimmers on the lake and the wind blows gently through the grass and then night falls.
To it’s credit, “night”, the most over-utilised horror tool of them all, is not relied upon for upping the creepy.
Oh no, the director wants to make the flesh-crawling moments as stark and repulsive as possible – here the sun glistens on the puddles of blood and mangled bodies too.
Although their problems begin of an evening, some of the finest gory moments occur at the most unexpected times. Others, well, in hindsight they seem to have been set up to arrive at a predetermined ‘ick’ point, but so what, who cares!
Of course they are, it’s a horror movie and that’s how they function.
In its genre, (screwball horror) it stands out as the best example recently produced and is, at the core, playing on your inherent fears but with just the right smattering of humour, to make horror truly scary again.
And after the ridiculous dirge that was “Freddy vs Jason” turned our childhood bogeymen into clowns we need something new to be scared of, damn it!

Some highbrow critics will snobbishly chastise this movie Simon Cowell style - “it’s derivative”, “it makes no sense” “the acting has more than a whiff of ham” “it relies on gore” “it’s stereotypical and stupid”. Well “ra ra” to them.

It’s entertaining as hell. Ample time is spent on the set – up, the funky musical score kicks ass, the weirdo stoners and locals who emerge from nowhere are a fun highlight, it has a kooky, retro feel and it will probably disgust and scare the shit out of you in equal measures. And you may laugh uneasily at the sick – ass, screwed up ending.
Here’s hoping you do!

Don’t go to watch this film expecting a “Seven” or “Silence of the Lambs”, but if you liked “Texas” and its ilk, you’ll get a big kick from Cabin Fever.

Terresa Gaffney

 

Do you remember those old “anti-drug” commercials with the frying pan and a raw egg? Well I have to compare the makers of “Cabin Fever” with that egg. Their brains were the raw egg when they first started making “Cabin Fever” but slowly the film cooked their minds. “Cabin Fever” is probably one of the most demented and frustrating films to come out this year.

Five friends have rented a cabin and journeyed into the backwoods for one of those “camping-party-romps”. The cabin is plain and delightful and the friends start to explore more about each other. Things begin to go horribly wrong when beautiful and innocent Karen (Jordan Ladd) is discovered to have a mysterious and deadly virus. The friends slowly see that their survival may depend upon giving up on each other. Survival can be inhumane but their surviving may depend upon even looking past that.

“Cabin Fever” definitely had the potential to be a harrowing and great psychological film. All the elements were laid out but instead what occurs is like nothing I have seen on screen before. These guys are probably the stupidest, ruthless and inhumane group of kids ever to grace the silver screen. Their actions and what they do to each other is so over-the-top and awful that it made me laugh. This film is laugh-out-loud bad.

There are some solid and perverse laughs encased in this film but for the most part it is just there to gross you out with heavy gore. I have liked some really infamously bad and bizarre gore-fests, like 1985’s “Re-Animator”, but this film just doesn’t have the logic or intelligence that it needs. The kids in the “Friday the 13th” films had more sense.

I enjoyed the performances from Rider Strong, Cerina Vincent and Jordan Ladd but Ladd especially. Ladd’s performance was the only one in the film that was believable. When she got the disease we all felt it. These three performances stood out in one of the most awful films of the year. Hope they go on to bigger and better things.

What was the film trying to accomplish with Twin Peaks-styled characters inhabiting the wooded area? Sure they are kooky and sort of funny but they seemed to be way out of context.

Maybe I just didn’t get it. It wouldn’t be the first time.

With a surefire indie hit like “28 Days Later” and a monster-gore-fest film “Jeepers Creepers 2” in theatres now, just skip “Cabin Fever”.

1 out of 5

Dean Kish

So Says the Soothsayer

A film review by
BlackEye

Cabinet Fever

This black comedy is a teen metaphor for the current White House administration. Very little intelligence, with a lot of macho posturing. Lot’s of blood and very little sex, although there is one scene when the perfect-breasted babe does a reverse move on the male and does him from behind like Lynn Cheney when she puts the steely dan to the rump of the Vice-president. Kinky. At it’s core though, is a Grand Guignol cautionary tale of what will happen to future generations if that wart-faced, wicked Blair witch of the west, Gale Norton continues as Secretary of the Interior much longer. Super fun is bespoiled when the Super Fund funds meant for toxic cleanup in the U.S.A. go to rebuild Haliburton’s Iraq instead. The five suburban teens also gives us a glimpse of the outcome of the Bush educational policy. These kids are going to college? The horror!

It’s also story of docile, irrational, short-sighted, loud-mouthed mental midgets aided by inbred spawn from south of the Mason-Dixon (red states), the residue of “clean coal” energy policies created in secret by dickless bald little men from Wyoming, and toxic waste left to simmer in it’s own sauces to create flesh eating bacteria and make a sewer of America’s beauty. The “other white meat” is placed in jeopardy by this mysterious malady as Jesse Helm’s main constituents and financial supporters, the hogs and their lobbyists, are diseased as well.

The animal connection is further complicated when the dogs gone wild begin eating the sins of the female victims and do a better job with their tongues than the boyfriend dawgs did with theirs. OK, so there one reality check in this “feature.” The town even has its very own rabid, mullet-headed Dennis the Menace (whose real last name is Helms, I kid you not) who sees humans as pancakes. Beware the jaws that bite and the claws that catch…

More madness reigns and rains. Although a cadre of Ashcroft-trained militia try to resolve “the problem” in their own special way, they end up shooting the messenger, kind of like how Rudy’s rogues cured Amadou Dialo. The police problem in a rural hamlet is not as complicated as that of NYC or LA and is easily handled with some 5 cent lemonade. Party on Deputy Winston.

The acting, directing, and production qualities are strictly B-picture, straight to video grade. Second rate. Just like the current Administration. Another theme that is addressed throughout this forest of fear is that “icky” people are ignored and pushed aside by society. That attitude is consistent with the Administration’s policies as well. Not only is there no “big tent,” there is nothing but bewilderness.

Unfortunately, this film is a laugh riot while the real horror emanates from Washington, D.C. This wonderful end of summer dump romp when seen with The Order makes a great indigestion inducing double feature with the entrees of flesh eating and sin eating in one scrumptious meal. Just don’t go near the water. Bon Appetite!

Copyright 2003
By T R Black

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