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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 49.73%
Worth A Look: 10.44%
Average: 10.99%
Pretty Bad: 6.32%
Total Crap: 22.53%
10 reviews, 304 user ratings
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| Cabin Fever |
by Mark Rodger-Snelson
"Doesn't quite live up to the hype but showcases a director with potential."
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Cabin Fever is the directorial debut from Eli Roth who is obviously a big fan of 70s and 80s horror – the heyday of the genre. The movie has been met with an amazing amount of hype with low budget goremeister come mega-budget Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson giving it his seal of approval.Cabin Fever makes no apologies for being full of horror clichés – it is about a group of college students holidaying at a woodland cabin (Evil Dead, Friday the 13th) in the middle of redneck country (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) who fall victim, one by one, to a sinister force. It is not a psycho or a supernatural entity that haunts these woods but a flesh eating virus that, if you are unlucky enough to catch it, has you looking like walking mince meat within a few hours.
On the first day the cabin is visited by a very sick mountain man covered in blood but instead of helping him, the group decide chase him off rather than risk catching whatever it was he was suffering from. It is revealed to the audience that the virus gets the better of the infected hillbilly whose final step is into a small dam which happens to be the water supply for the cabin. So if any of the characters decides to have a drink of water, they are likely to start rotting within a very short time.
The first to fall victim to the sickness is Karen (Jordan Ladd) who is the love interest of Paul (Rider Strong) – they have been friends for years but Paul is hoping this trip to the woods will change their relationship to one that is a little more intimate. Not long after their unwelcome guest visits, it is discovered that Karen has a patch of rotting flesh on her leg and the group find that their car will not start (the mother of all clichés) when they go to seek help. It should be mentioned here that all the members of this holidaying team are incredibly self centred and shallow human beings – so their solution? They lock Karen up in a wooden shed and plan to deal with her in the morning so as not to risk infection. Paranoia soon sets in and everyone is suspecting each other of having the virus which is reminiscent of what happens in John Carpenter’s The Thing. Add to the equation an aggressive Alsatian on the hunt for some fresh meat-off-the-bone as well as some locals wielding shotguns and you have a very tense and bloody affair.
There are also a number of comedy moments to be had amongst the bloodshed, particularly from some of the visitors to the cabin. There’s the skater dude named Grim (played by Roth himself) who turns up on the first night. Grim is a very odd man that the group want nothing to do with until they realise that he has a plentiful supply of cannabis. Then there is Deputy Winston, a young police officer, who is more interested in partying than investigating the reasons as to why blood is splattered all over their vehicle and the grounds of the cabin.
The best aspect of Cabin Fever is that Roth shows what can be done on a relatively miniscule budget ($1.5 million). The film looks great, the mood is tense and the effects are realistic. The score is by David Lynch’s favourite composer Angelo Badalamenti and is one of the most menacing, haunting and effectively edgy pieces that I have heard. Opening credits have never been so terrifying due to the music alone. Considering that Cabin Fever has nearly grossed $30 million US dollars worldwide, Eli Roth is definitely a director to watch and could well be on the same path as Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. Roth’s next film titled The Box is scripted by Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) and is based on a short story by Richard Matheson. He also has a cameo in the upcoming sequel to the 60s B-grade horror 2000 Maniacs in which Robert Englund plays the lead.
Cabin Fever comes across like an Evil Dead meets 28 Days Later that never really scales the heights that both of these films achieved. This is mainly due to the characters not being particularly likable and the lack of any new ideas.Faults aside, Cabin Fever does show a director with huge potential and it is still an enjoyable venture into the genre
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=7206&reviewer=388
originally posted: 11/01/04 07:40:57
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Edinburgh Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Edinburgh Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 SXSW Film Festival. For more in the 2003 South By Southwest Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Sydney Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Sydney Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Seattle Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Seattle Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 San Francisco Film Festival. For more in the 2003 San Francisco Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Los Angeles Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Los Angeles Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Brisbane Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Brisbane Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
12-Sep-2003 (R)
DVD: 20-Jan-2004
UK
N/A
Australia
04-Dec-2003
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