Movie review: Cabin Fever
Posted on January 24, 2004
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A remarkably bad horror film for many reasons, but specifically one in particular (no, not bad acting. Bad acting is par for the course for this sort of film and not something to be criticized. Now good acting, that would be ususual. And no, not the script. That it blows is par for the genre course too): the film-maker clearly can’t decide whether he’s trying to make a real action-horror film ala Aliens or if he’s making a comedy-horror film ala Evil Dead 2. By twitching spastically between the two it falls flat on both fronts.
It also has an incredibly unexciting ending. Most horror films telegraph their ending early on yet manage to still find a way to make that last scene suspenseful, or at the very least interesting. Not so Cabin Fever. Watching the ending approach is a bit like tuning into C-SPAN: part of you watches hoping something interesting will happen, but really you’re just trying not to fall asleep on the couch.
The creator is clearly a student of cult films but unfortunatelly he seems to have slept through a few classes. Cabin Fever is the sort of film you’d make someone watch if you wanted to punish them.
Update: After having watch the “Making of…” documentary included on the DVD I really want to say something nice about this film because everyone involved with it is so patently earnest about how badly they want to make a great schlock horror. Unfortunately I can’t. It still sucks. But now I feel bad about it.
Y-A-Update: I found something. Rent this film, watch the “Pancakes” special feature. Watch it many, many times. Forget about the rest.
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2 Responses to “Movie review: Cabin Fever”
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Who’s writer?.. Director?… Producer?… Have they ever created anyghing like this before? Or is this a new failed attempt? Why couldn’t they follow one avenue or path in the filming? Perhaps they were pulled by too many undecided forces within its production(?) It’s happened before, ya know? I think I might even have this film recorded in my collection. I’ve feeling kinda self-abusive tonight. Let’s go plug it in and see what happens! Hmm?… (Quick, call the doctors! Get my meds!)
Here’s the IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303816/
And to answer your director question: I should not be surprised to go back and discover that it was Eli Roth of Hostel and Hostel II infamy. Which is frustrating because he seems like he should be able to make a great horror/gore film consistently but he doesn’t. So far only Hostel has been worthy of what it seems like Roth should really be capable of (and for the sake of yourself, avoid Hostel 2 - who the hell let that get made?)
If I may be so bold, I’d suggest Roth go back and look at what made the likes of Nightmare on Elm Street and Hellraiser and the works of Rob Zombie so good (bad good even), dissect them, understand them, and then layer his capacity for extreme violence on top of that. Then maybe we’d see something frrom him worth remembering in ten or twenty years.