Cabin Fever
Directed by: Eli Roth
Written by: Eli Roth and Randy Pearlstein
Starring: Rider Strong, Jordan Ladd, Joey Kern, Cerina Vincent, James DeBello

So I just saw Cabin Fever and here I am all fired up to sit down and write about it. Where do I start? This, my friends, is a classic for the ages. It’s sure to be the subject of much debate for years to come, so let me just save everyone some time and get down to the bottom line: Good and bad are terms that hold no meaning when talking about a movie like this, the only thing that matters is that it must be seen to be believed. Scrounge together whatever money you can and head over to your local theatre right this minute, because if you don’t, you’re missing out on something special. And if you ask me to describe what makes it so special, well, I need only one word… pancakes?

Like most people who have a bit of a taste for horror flicks, I went into this movie feeling cautiously optimistic. The latest Hollywood resurgence in horror movies has not brought with it very many worthwhile films, but Cabin Fever, this little indie film that got picked up after selling out like crazy at last year’s Toronto Film Fest, promised a return to the cult b-movie old school: plenty of scares, plenty of gore, and plenty of laughs. But would it be just a rip off of The Evil Dead 1 and/or 2? Or would it be another tired “thriller” with hot young actors and actresses that dilutes itself with too much back story? All I can say is, none of the above.

I’ll get the Evil Dead resemblance out of the way first. The movie is about a group of teenagers who take a vacation out in the woods in a cabin. (Lots of horror movies take place in the woods or other isolated settings actually.) What then happens to them at the cabin is more akin to 28 Days Later or George Romero’s The Crazies. They encounter a guy in the woods who is infected with some sort of disease that makes him bleed everywhere. When they “accidentally” kill him out of fear of contagion, he ends up infecting the water supply surrounding the cabin, which in turn infects them anyways. As they struggle to save themselves, they have a number of run-ins with the wacky locals. And boy are they wacky.

I gotta be honest, this is not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination. Some scenes are dull and drawn out, some of the cuts are sloppy, and it often struggles with itself trying to decide where to be funny and where to be serious. But by the end, all judgement you might pass on this movie becomes irrelevant. Cabin Fever is so gleefully gruesome that I daresay it rivals movies like Peter Jackson’s own Dead Alive for the sheer amount of blood splattering (no wonder he publicly gave it his own seal of approval), and yet at the same time, it doesn’t look like a low budget b-movie. The make-up and gore effects are pretty realistic looking, and the camera work is fairly solid.

I’m a little undecided on the acting performances. At first I was annoyed by each of the 5 main characters, especially the “dumb jock” with the voice that sounds like a professional wrestler (James DeBello — Detroit Rock City, Swimfan). As the movie progressed though, and as it became more and more clear that that movie was not taking itself at all seriously, I grew to appreciate what originally seemed like the most horrible dialogue and bad jokes. The actors did manage to deal with both the campy moments and serious moments of terror on even terms though, and that’s saying something.

It doesn’t ever really come together into a cohesive whole, but I think the more impressive thing is that someone had the balls to pull off all this crazy stuff in one movie. And that it actually somehow managed to get a wide release in theatres. I think most people in the audience didn’t know what to make of it… hell, I didn’t know what to make of it either half the time. That’s a good thing though. This is a movie that you will talk about with your friends afterwards, and that to me justifies its existence.

My only advice is that if you are one of these people who sees the movie and feels the urge to walk out at any point… DON’T DO IT. If you do, you will miss out on what is potentially the best/worst ending of a movie ever. It’s like something out of a Naked Gun movie and it is longest pay off on a joke that you didn’t even know was a joke. Ingenious, really. It’s something you’ll want to tell your grandkids about.

So by all means listen to what I am about to say. Go out and catch Cabin Fever! There is always the chance that you will want to beat me with a stick afterwards, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. — Sean