Cabin Fever review
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. For those who know me you know about my love for horror films so once a month I’m going to review and discuss a scary flick. We’ll look at the classics, some new films, and I want your suggestions on what I should review. I’ll do my best to cover all the different genres within the genre – slashers, ghosts, monsters, etc.
SPOILER ALERT! – These will be reviews so if you haven’t seen the movie you’ll want to watch it first before you read this. Let’s do this.
CABIN FEVER
I LOVE Cabin Fever. I just wanted to mention that before we get started. I saw it in theaters the week it opened in 2003. Here’s the truth though – I honestly wasn’t too interested in seeing it but my friend convinced me it was going to be great (so Kevin if you are reading this, thank you) Pretty sure I wanted to go right back in the theater and watch it again. It pretty much had everything I wanted which is a big reason people love it. It’s really an homage to previous horror films that fans of the genre really appreciate. Cabin Fever is the first film from Director Eli Roth who is just as much a horror film fan as he is a Director. Cabin Fever put him on the map and I certainly hope you have heard of him by now.
Cabin Fever is the gory tale of five friends who are on their spring break from college and decide to rent a cabin in the woods for a much-needed break and fall victim to a flesh-eating virus. Normally I write these reviews by going through a full synopsis, but this time I just want to talk about the movie. Eli Roth got the idea for the movie when he got a skin infection while traveling overseas in Iceland. After graduating from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (which has a fantastic film program) he wrote Cabin Fever but couldn’t sell it to any studios. Finally, in 2001 after securing funding he was able to shoot it. It was the highest grossing film from Lionsgate the year it was released and after everyone had seen it we knew that Roth was the next horror star.
So, what is so great about Cabin Fever you ask? That would be everything. I’ve watched it twice with the Director commentary and Roth spends most of the time talking about filmmaking. He attended a structured film program and says that was an important thing. He mentions that film school is “a safe place to fail”. He points out that if he hadn’t gone to film school Cabin Fever would have been a piece of garbage. It really doesn’t matter how much money you have if you don’t understand the craft. He took all the knowledge he learned and put all his passion into this film and it shows. Shot on good film stock, good acting, exceptional music from Angelo Badalamenti, and all the pieces that make a proper film production.
Our characters are Paul (played by former teen heartthrob Rider Strong from the OUTSTANDING 90’s program Boy Meets World), Karen, Marcy, Bert, and Jeff. They aren’t going to win Oscars for their roles, but I think they do a great job. Marcy and Jeff are dating, Paul wants Karen, and Bert is a just a dude. At one point Jeff bets Bert he can only drink beer the rest of their trip. He loses. It’s Bert who accidentally shoots the hobo that has the flesh-eating virus. When he comes to the cabin begging for help the friends flip out and as Karen says, “that man wanted our help and we lit him on fire” After they call the police we get to meet Deputy Winston. He’s played by Giuseppe Andrews and certainly steals the show. “Hey it’s the party man!” He’s a terrible cop who never grew up and just wants to party. The scene where he tells Karen to go drink a 40 and party might be my favorite scene in the movie. What about Dennis? the little boy who sits outside the general store? PANCAKES! PANCAKES! Once he bites Bert and gets sick, his kinfolk head out to find these kids and put them out of their misery. A great nod to previous horror films is when Paul sticks the screwdriver into the ear of one of the mountain men ala Dawn of the Dead. More on the tributes later. As you know things don’t turn out well for our college co-ed friends who all get the virus. Marcy gets torn to shreds by a dog – his name is Dr. Mambo by the way. Bert gets his head blown off while waiting to shoot Dennis’ people. After Jeff runs off to avoid getting sick, he returns to the cabin days later and it looks like he’s the only one who has survived. He starts to rejoice then gets pumped full of bullets by the police. And what about our would-be lovers Paul and Karen? Paul finishes off Karen with a shovel and it starts to look like he might make it out of this. After the hospital doesn’t know what to do with him, they give him back to Deputy Winston who dumps his body in a creek. How about the last scene of the film? Everyone is at the general store enjoying some homemade lemonade that we find out is made from the water in the very creek where Paul was left to die.
More about Paul and Karen though. The two team up for the best– well depending on how you look at it – scene of the movie. Their relationship is a nicer part of a movie that is pretty gruesome. He’s had a crush on her forever, but it doesn’t look like it will ever lead to anything. Then they kiss a little on the lake and after Karen says she doesn’t feel well (she drank the contaminated water) he comes into her room to check on her. He’s about to leave but she asks him to stay. The two get under the covers and it looks like Paul is going to get what he’s always wanted. It’s a dark and softly well-lit scene and the music is perfect. It’s an intimate moment as they share in foreplay, but then Paul brings his hand up and finds it covered in blood. He pulls back the covers and we see Karen’s legs are soaked in blood from the virus. Obviously this scene can be interpreted in so many ways so I’m going to leave it alone. Karen gets the worst of it in the film. After that scene they lock her up in a shack out back where she pretty much rots away as the group can never get her help. Paul eventually finds the dog eating her stomach, but she is still alive. He finds a shovel and puts an end to her suffering. Tough to think about what you would do if that happened to someone close to you. The other infamous scene is when Marcy is shaving her legs. She has the virus and we hear the slice of the razor cutting into the infected sores on her legs as she begins bleeding profusely. I met Cerina Vincent who played Marcy and asked her what her take was on that scene. She told me she played it like it was the worst day of your life. Yeah.
Cabin Fever is just a bloody, funny, great horror film. Yeah it’s scary but it has a sense of humor too which is always something good in a scary movie. It has a good sense of dread that you can really feel. We know the virus is the antagonist if you will, but there is an unseen looming threat that I feel throughout the movie every time I watch it. Maybe it’s the group turning on each other as things become hopeless. I guess really the film is body horror which David Cronenberg does so well. So, we mention it being an homage to earlier horror films right? I talked about the screwdriver in the ear referencing Dawn of the Dead. When they are driving up to the cabin we hear The Road Leads to Nowhere on the radio which was originally in The Last House on the Left. There is a low, slow motion scene of Marcy walking by the river that totally echoes the scene of the character in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as she approaches the farm house. Maybe at the end when the police are burning all the bodies we’re watching the same thing we saw in Night of the Living Dead? Basically, the film draws something from every iconic horror film. There were some sequels and they were not good. Part 2 is just disgusting honestly and there was a Patient Zero sequel I believe but I never saw it. There was also a remake just recently. It’s basically a shot for shot remake and it was trashed by critics but I didn’t hate it. Roth was a Producer on the film and his original script was used. I guess he just wanted to change a few things that he couldn’t do in the first film. What sequels say to me is the first was that good that we want to keep it going. Yup, Cabin Fever is awesome.
Eli Roth loves horror films and has his whole life. I think I heard that at one of his childhood birthday parties he had a chainsaw cake. He’s a Director who wants to direct horror movies. When he made Cabin Fever horror fans everywhere saw it and said “Yes! This is great!” He followed it up with the controversial Hostel films and his most recent gore fest was The Green Inferno. Not to mention he did a remake of Death Wish. He’s not a terrible actor either, appearing in Inglourious Basterds and Death Proof. Along with Ti West and Adam Green, Roth is my favorite Director. He’s someone who gets it and I’m always on the lookout for what he’s coming up with next. Not sure if he’ll top Cabin Fever but that will be okay with me.
Enjoy the trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wda8vC9j8vA