![]() ![]() And a prequel, Cabin Fever: Patient Zero, starring Sean Astin, was released just recently. Seven years later, Ti West butted heads with studio Lionsgate over the ill-fated sequel Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. Sadly their partying is ruined by an unpleasant and virulent outbreak of necrotising fasciitis. They’re all fans of the original and want to make a film that’s a new classic and I believe they will."Ĭabin Fever, if you missed it, involves a group of teens holing up in a remote cabin for a spot of misbehaviour. I almost see this like re-staging a play, and I’m excited to see what ideas Travis and the cast bring to it. “Travis had an amazing vision for my original script," says Roth, "and as a scary movie fan I really wanted to see it. That's not because he's re-tooled the script, but because Zariwny is working from the exact same screenplay that Roth co-wrote with Randy Pearlstein just over a decade ago. Roth is acting as executive producer and is also the writer. Travis Zariwny ( Intruder) is the director, and the unforntuate kids this time are Gage Golightly (from MTV's Teen Wolf series), Dustin Ingram, Samuel Davis, Matthew Daddario and Nadine Crocker. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to turn the cabin-in-the-woods / flesh-eating-virus horror into a franchise, a new team has decided to start again from scratch. ![]() Halfway through this wasted opportunity of a movie, I was already rooting for the virus.Eli Roth's Cabin Fever is now twelve years old: plenty old enough, apparently, to be ripe for the remake treatment. They're bland and they're boring, and we don't give a monkey's what happens to them. Their mobile phones work perfectly, except when they need to use them.Įven the characters themselves are straight out of central casting, the same cardboard cut-outs we've seen a million times before - the babe (Vincent), the boorish jock (James DeBello), the "nice" girl (Ladd). Their truck inexplicably breaks down (but works again when the plot demands). As a result, characters head off into the night on their own in search of help, armed with nothing more threatening than a torch. Roth seems happy to play it safe and trot out a series of horror genre staples, as if he's trawled the B-movie archives for inspiration. The film is already floundering when Giuseppe Andrews appears as a spaced-out sheriff - but Andrews' attempt to lighten the mood with his "comic" turn only succeeds in killing it stone dead. But too many scenes fall flat, or simply don't work. ![]() There's also a stomach-churning scene involving the unfortunate Karen (Jordan Ladd) and a rabid dog. It does have its moments, especially when the virus kicks in, and you might want to look away when Marcy (Cerina Vincent) starts shaving her legs in the bath. Where did the virus come from in the first place? Why does no one think to call in the authorities once it starts to spread beyond the woods? And that hillbilly kid with a penchant for biting people's hands? What the hell is that all that about? Instead, we get a mish-mash that doesn't know if it's supposed to be played for laughs or shocks, and in the end it turns out to be a messy hybrid of both, with too many questions left unanswered. So far, not so bad, but having set things up nicely, writer/director Eli Roth then loses the plot. Pretty routine stuff, then? Yes, but at least Cabin Fever does offer one clever twist on the "if you go down to the woods" genre - our college kids are being knocked off not by the dentally-challenged rednecks but by something even more terrifying, a nasty flesh-eating virus that has been brought into the camp by an infected stranger. Cue lots of screaming, lots of blood and guts, and lots of dead people. This being schlock horror, we know exactly what happens - they do meet some locals but, surprise, surprise, they're a bunch of deranged hillbillies with big guns and bad teeth. You know what happens next - they meet and befriend some well-adjusted locals, sing songs around the campfire and generally have a jolly nice time before heading back home. Five college friends head for the woods for a spot of R&R. ![]()
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