Cabin Fever - Special Edition

Starring:Richard Boone (II), Hal Courtney, Charee Cuthrell, James DeBello, Jana Farmer, Robert Harris (XIII), Matthew Helms, Brandon Johnson (IV), Joey Kern, Jordan Ladd, Dalton McGuire, Tim Parati, Jeff Rendell, Rider Strong, Bill Terrell (II), Richard Terrell, Arie Verveen, Cerina Vincent, Dante Walker
Studio: Lions Gate
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

A sneaky and surprisingly smart horror flick, Cabin Fever sets up all the cliches of its particular subgenre (what might be called the "sexy young people go into the woods" horror movie, featuring hostile redneck locals, dead animals on hooks, cars that suddenly stop running, etc.) and by the end has played a clever twist on every standard element, often to darkly comic effect. What's the plot? Well, five sexy young people (Rider Strong, Jordan Ladd, Joey Kern, Cerina Vincent, and James DeBello) go to an isolated cabin where they contract a nasty bacteria that eats their flesh; this, combined with a bad-tempered dog and a party-loving police deputy (Giuseppe Andrews, giving a particularly funny performance), leads everyone into confusion and bloody chaos. Some of the ironic twists are a little obvious, but most of them effectively subvert your expectations to entertaining effect. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Well...least it was better than Hostel.......2007-07-01

Cabin Fever has a weirdly unique place in the recent horror movies in that it's not completely part of that "torture porn" crop of movies that focus mainly on disgusting audiences than outright terrifying them. Cabin Fever on the other hand wants to be a horror film like seen a lot during the 70's. Problem is the film has an identity crisis in that it doesn't know what it wants to be. A funny horror movie? A scary comedy? Sometimes that dual personality works but here it feels too disjointed...plus it's kinda bad too.

Taking the familiar theme of a group of teenagers into the woods, you'd think some mask-toting killer with stalk ever so slowly after them right? Wrong. Turns out, the cool guy and the sex bomb, the awkward teen and the sweet chick and a lunkhead have to deal with a flesh-eating disease, a rabid dog and weird locals. You know, the usual.

That's pretty much the plot in a nutshell. Granted, it's nice to see a new killer wiping out the kiddies but even then, it's still a little thin. Not to mention these are some of the illogical choice-making kids ever and in the horror genre, that's seriously saying something. One character, the sweet guy, decides to fondle the object of his desires since grade 8...while she's sleeping. Yes, that's right, sleeping. And when said girl has to be sheltered off somewhere, he decides to have sex with the sex bomb. Figures he might as well get in some sex since he knows he's going to die anyway. Or maybe he's just dumb.

The disjointed feel comes in the way of humor adding in. There's the infamous "pancakes" scene that feels like it should be in a parody of bad kung fu movies then horror. Was it meant to lighten the tension? Or is it just simply trying to be a funny movie mixed in with the gore stuff to set it apart from serious ilk such as High Tension. Either make it a straight ahead horror comedy like Army of Darkness or go completely for the horror.

Like Hostel, the DVD is loaded with more commentaries than anything. And of course, writer/director Eli Roth is everywhere with a track by himself, with the girls, the guys, Rider Strong who's so gabby he needs his own track and a filmmaker commentary. But that don't mean anything if it's attached to a good movie and in this case, it's all for naught.

I don't know if a horror fan will completely love it. From Saw to Shining, Cabin Fever is just somewhere else. Don't mean unique means quality either.

Im Shocked.......2007-06-21

Not only with the movie itself, but with all these low reviews on it. Ive seen the movie quite a few times and its never failed to creep me out, or to entertain me. Ive always thought it to be one of the better horror films, especially with this new crap coming out. In my eyes this movie is 10x better than Hostel and many other horror films made around the last few years. It never trys to be a serious film and it never wants to be. Its a fun, thrill you, make you piss your pants type film. Just gory fun is the best way to describe it. This isnt the most graphic horror film Ive seen, but nevertheless it makes me feel sick everytime I watch it. To me the whole idea of just one little glass of water causing all this conflict is just scary because it feels like it could happen. Not to mention, I had a glass of water beside me during the whole film! Needless to say, I only took one little sip. I must be a coward, but the film can be very creepy. I really loved the effects in the film and the acting. Its just a fun horror flick. It succeeds as that very much. I enjoyed it a lot.

Not So Good.......2007-05-21

My viewing of Cabin Fever was inspired by Eli Roth's recent success with the Hostel franchise, and involvement in Grindhouse. I must, say that I was disappointed in Cabin Fever. The premise is good enough, but the inclusion of the townfolk, and the wild karate child are too much. With all that going on, the stoy is not developed enough. If they had only focused on the teens in the cabin, and their issues, it might have been a better movie.

Simply one of the stupidest movies I have ever seen..........2007-04-18

...Definetley the grossest. So I guess that counts for something. This movie is truly disgusting. So if that's what you're into then you'll ptobably really like this movie. Other than the gross out factor there's really not much more to this movie. So there's really no need to spend anymore time on this review.

Run For Your Lives!!! It's the... uh... slow-acting, easy-to-detect disease..........2007-02-01

Not a good horror movie.

Cabin Fever, the story of teens who waste away from a flesh-eating bacteria while camping in the woods, sounded like it might have the potential to be a sort of ground-breaker. A slasher film where the "slasher" is disease? Tons of interesting possibilites, there. Sadly, this movie doesn't follow any of the cool new roads it had open to it, instead relying on the same tired formulas we've already seen a thousand times. Worse, though, is that none of those formulas really work in this movie, either. This isn't just cliche; it's cliche done poorly.

One of the basic problems Cabin Fever suffers from is this: the Stupid Teens of this film are only camping. It's not like they're in some remote jungle of South America or anything, so it's hard to understand how they can all waste away from a disease, since 1) they have a car, 2) there are plenty of other people around, 3) they know about the disease, and want to leave the campsite and 4) the disease takes some time to take over and has obvious symptoms.

So: how do we keep those Stupid Teens at the camp, despite the fact that they're being ravaged by a disease? By making them Extra-Super Stupid! Also, by coming up with a series of contrived coincidences and happenings to delay and deter their efforts to leave. And so, the kids manage to shoot up their own car (even then, it's still basically operable, but never mind that); there's a mean dog that they're afraid of, discouraging them from going outside; the local deputy is a dimwit party boy, and thus is no help; the town locals are Deliverance-style, and so actually scarier (and more villainous) than the disease is; the teens accidentally offend the other backwoods people in various ways.

It's just all... silly, when they could just, you know... drive away to a city or something and get help. But they don't do that, because the characters don't want to get in their "diseased car" and so they stay in the (healthy?) cabin in the (healthy?) woods.

In the end, and sadly, the disease just makes for a poor villain. Disease can't chase someone. It can't jump out from behind a corner. It can't hide in a closet. So, instead of the disease threatening our Teens, we need all sorts of other, contrived things to provide our suspense and death-sequences. Almost no-one in this movie dies of the disease--instead, they're accidentally killed by others, or shot by local yokels, or hit by cars, or mauled by dogs, etc. The diesase is just what makes everyone act like (more of) an idiot.

Except for Masque of the Red Death, Cabin Fever is the only disease-centered horror story I can think of. The idea has a lot of potential, but Cabin Fever takes advantage of none of it, instead relying on the same horror movie conventions that we've seen for almost thirty years. That would be okay if they were done well; they're not--the events in this movie feel contrived and corny and there's no real suspense or fright to be found. A complete disappointment.

Two stars.

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