| Product: |
Cabin Fever (DVD) |
| Date: |
30/01/06 (143 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Nice Idea
Disadvantages: Poorly Executed
Five teenagers break up from high school and take off to the woods for a vacation. Stopping only to stock up on food and drink, they make their way straight to an isolated log cabin where they revel in the solitude and new found freedom. Whilst the two couples spend some time getting a bit closer, the fifth member of the group, Bert, takes off into the woods with a shotgun and a serious intent to shoot some squirrels. His aim is pretty awful, but whilst he fails to bag himself any rodents he is horrified when a stray shot hits a man. As the man rises from the floor, it is obvious that there is clearly something wrong with him. His face is covered in blood, he can hardly walk and although he asks Bert for help, the teenager tells him to back off, lets off a few more rounds and scarpers into the woods.
That evening, after some drinks around the campfire, the teenagers are settling into the cabin when there is a knock at the door, where a horrific sight greets them. The man that Bert shot has appeared once more, but this time he is in an even worse state. When he runs out to the truck and tries to steal it, the group grabs every implement to hand to try and fend off the crazed man. Eventually, a freak accident results in the wretched man becoming engulfed in a fireball and he runs off into the woods screaming and burning. Understandably terrified by the whole experience, the teenagers settle down for a very unsettled night’s sleep, unable to discard the image of the burning man from their minds.
But it isn’t just the man’s memory that lingers. In an attempt to quench the fire of his burning clothes, the man pitches into the local reservoir, where he ends up face down. As his body floats in the water, his legacy disperses and makes its silent, but deadly way into the pipe that feeds the local water supply. For the occupants of the cabin, the nightmare is only just beginning……
Cabin Fever has appealed to me for ages, purely because I like the poster. It’s fantastic. Have you seen it? It’s very eerie, unlike the actual film that it advertises. I was REALLY disappointed with Cabin Fever because it had been hyped up to be something that it simply wasn’t. That’ll teach me.
Cabin Fever takes all the traditional elements of a slasher movie (group of sexed-up irresponsible teenagers, solitude, weird locals, simple act of stupidity) and puts them into a rather different context. Whilst you might be led to believe that the teenagers will end up being stalked and attacked by the poor bloke from the woods, the reality is rather different because it’s the flesh-eating disease inhabiting his body that actually starts to pick them off. One of the initial reasons that I was ultimately disappointed with the film was that I had been led to believe that the story would play like a traditional slasher with an eventual twist into the disease scenario. This never happened. It’s quite clear from the beginning that the story is about contamination.
It’s not a particularly good horror film either. One of the reasons for this is that it feels cheap. The make-up effects are surprisingly limited and reek of limited finances. There are few action scenes and it’s all just a bit silly really. There’s no suspense and the story descends into a confusing concoction of different elements that start to feel as though it were produced by Mr Film “Make It Up As You Go Along” Director. The blackly comical feel to the film means that there are few shocks and the film never really gets the chance to be frightening. Despite the isolated location and the sinister feeling of the woods, the teenagers never seem to feel at risk. There is never a feeling of tension or desperation and the story just bounces from one odd sequence to another.
In keeping with the latest trend to show affection towards the classic horror films of the 1970s, there are elements of this story that will be familiar. The demise of the poor guy in the woods represents the victim of hundreds of similar films (that will normally turn into the killer.) Ironically, this is still strictly true in Cabin Fever – he just infects all the kids rather than stabbing, slashing or burning them. There are a selection of odd ball locals, which, in keeping with film history, are introduced in the local store and provide all the sorts of clues that would have anyone else packing their bags and legging it back to civilisation as quick as possible. There is a brain dead police sheriff who totters off into the woods on his bike. You also have the classic selection of willing teenage victims. Two are horny and at it like rabbits. One is horny and desperate to be at it like a rabbit, whilst the other is wistful and saving herself. You then, of course, have the geek who wants only to shoot things, smoke dope and get the dog to lick his balls. To cap it all off, you even have the raft out on the lake, which is just crying out to be the scene of a suitably grim execution.
But you never get these things – and that’s why Cabin Fever is so disappointing. Apart from the unused tributes, it also suffers from terrible moments of cliché and downright stupidity. Mobile phones have no signal, cars won’t start, rabid dogs keep appearing and so it goes on and on. Were we enjoying the ritual slaughter of nubile teenagers it wouldn’t be so bad – but we’re not. Even the teenagers aren’t that good. Jordan Ladd and Cerina Vincent do plenty of screaming but ultimately go to pieces (!) Rider Strong is far too nasal and weedy and Joey Kern is just plain irritating. Giuseppe Andrews is convincing as deputy Winston but basically still just a nuisance.
So if I were to give Eli Roth (writer and director) some feedback and advice, how would I have done things differently?
For starters, the contamination of the man in the woods at the start gives too much away. I’d have lost that scene and just introduced him as a weird (and not obviously ill) hermit. I’d have introduced some tension by intimating that the teenagers were being watched in their cabin. I’d have played on this idea for a while, with partial glimpses and jumpy suggestions that there was “something out there”. And then I’d have got the hermit inside the cabin where, unrevealed to the audience, he would have somehow contaminated one of the characters. The contaminated character would then have subsequently died, quickly and painfully in a fashion that wouldn’t have been instantly obvious. This would have meant that the teenagers would be terrified as to what had happened and suspect that there was someone out to get them. In my version, the “killer” would have been a dark and malevolent force that somehow moved amongst the group, unsuspected until it was too late, occupying every dark corner of the cabin and picking them off one at a time.
But that wasn’t the version we got. So I remain fundamentally very disappointed. Cabin Fever simply isn’t sinister, nasty or gory enough and while some of the comical flourishes are quite witty, the film failed to gross me out or scare the wits out of me. A good horror film will always do one or both.
Not recommended
Summary: Too clever for its own good - but it keeps you guessing. Kinda.
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