Cabin Fever (2002)

Cast:

Rider "When Boy Meets World is remade, I'll be Mr. Feeny" Strong is Paul
Jordan Ladd is Karen
James DeBello is Bert
Cerina "Areaola from Not Another Teen Movie" Vincent is Marcy
Joey Kern is Jeff
Arie Verveen is Henry (The Hermit)

What the box says:

Jeff, Karen, Marcy, ane Bert embark on a vacation deep in the mountains. With the top down and the music up, they drive to a remote cabin to enjoy their last days of decadence after college. Then somebody gets sick. Karen's skin starts to bubble and burn as something grows inside her, tunneling beneath her flesh. As the others try to save her, they look at one another and realize that any of them could be next. One by one they turn on each other and the rest of the town...realizing that the disease is the least of their problems.

Plot:

In the woods, Henry checks on his dog which is dead and splits open. Cut to..

Elsewhere, Jeff (the vapid blonde guy), Marcy (his skankaliscious girlfriend), Paul (the token nice guy), Karen (girl Paul has had a crush on), and Bert (idiot wannabe frat boy) leave college to party. Leave to Pahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhtayyyyyyyyyyyyy….They stop at a general store in the armpit of Redneckia. Dennis bites Paul’s hand.

The wild 5-some get their stuff and head to the cabin for a week of fun and fornication. Jeff and Marcy decided they need to swamp bodily fluids below the waste. Paul and Karen head out to the lake and have one of the painfully shy relationship discussions.

However, Bert decides shooting squirrels is quality entertainment. He engages in other mature activities such as starting fires and accidentally shooting Henry, the sick guy. Bert doesn’t want to take the shot guy to the doctor but forces the guy to head off.

Night, at their marshmallow roast, Paul tells of the bowling alley massacre from his hometown. Justin, the camping, reefer supplier, pops up. Afterwards, he has to head back to his tent.

Later that night, Henry shows up at the cabin and tells that Bert shot him. Well, the obviously mature Bert doesn’t want the guy near him. Henry gets into the truck and starts to drive away when the intelligentsia of Jeff, Bert, and Paul stop him. The resulting carnage has the truck shot and beaten more than in the middle of a riot after NBA basketball championship. Henry gets out of the truck and is clubbed before being set on fire. Yes, he was set on fire!?!?!?!? He does manage to stagger off into the woods…

In the morning, see the truck covered in gore from last night’s attack. Elsewhere, the trapper’s body has fallen into the lake. Unfortunately, that same lake has a water pipe leading directly to the cabin.

Karen is most disturbed by last night’s events and has a drink of water…Dum-Dum-Dum…. (take that as ominous music or characterizing her action)

Bert and Jeff head off trying to get to a phone. They reach a nearby farm where the woman is complaining about her animals getting sick. She offers to radio help for them. However, the hightail it when seeing a picture of the sick guy in the house.

Marcy canoes across the lake for help. She finds a house that Bert and Jeff are at.

Back at the cabin, Deputy Dudley Partyright pops up. He gets Paul’s account about some crazy guy trying to steal the truck. He offers to get a mechanic to fix the truck.

Paul and Bert clean blood and entrails off the truck. Justin’s dog pops up and is scared away by Marcy. Jeff just wants to leave and not mention Henry. Karen isn’t feeling too well. Bert will try to get the truck up and running. Karen drinks more of the ominous water… Dum-Dum-Dum…. (take that as ominous music or characterizing her action)

Paul gets into Karen’s bed. He starts the groping. Let the fondling ensue when he discovers she’s oozing blood.

Immediately, everyone avoids her like the plague she has. They take her to a nearby shack and lock her up. TOO DARK TO SEE what is happening. Marcy brings some food for Karen.

Paul is out looking for help. He spots a naked writhing chick. Guy isn’t happy about any dude spying on his wife and runs him off.

Back at the cabin, everyone seems to be turning on each other. Paul tries pulling everyone together. Bert drinks some water… Dum-Dum-Dum…. (take that as ominous music or characterizing his action)

The next day, Bert gets the truck started. They’re about to take Karen to the doctor. Bert starts wharfing up blood and sputum.

Awww, man...I just dropped king size snickers in my pants They see Karen is even sicker. Bert heads to town. They realize he is sick, too.

Marcy and Paul take care of Karen. Jeff gets some booze and heads into the woods.

Marcy realizes they’ll all die. That is enough of a turn-on for her to drive Paul until he arrives with the swapping of bodily fluids below the belt.

Bert gets to the general store. The store owner will get help until after Dennis the deranged performs a kung fu kata and bites Bert’s hand. Suddenly, the owner decides that it is Bert’s fault that Dennis will get sick and the rest of the family namely, Owner. He decides the best cure is blood retribution and chases Bert with a shotgun.

Bert hightails it in the truck with Owner and his hick buddies in hot pursuit… (Huhhhh-Cooo-Cooo-Coooo, sorry never let a Dukes of Hazzard reference pass. The truck finally stalls out and Bert has to go off on foot. The posse starts trailing him. Bert is getting to play the Most Dangerous Game without benefit of being armed.

Paul reaches the lake and finds Henry’s body floating there before falling into the lake.

Back at the cabin, Marcy is taking a bath and shaving her legs. No good can come of this. She discovers she is starting to bleed. Grabbing a robe, she heads outside. Unfortunately, Marcy gets to become the chew-toy for Dr. Mambo, the dog that has been popping up now and then. Remember the reefer camping guy? His dog…

Paul heads back to the cabin and gets chased by the dog. Later, Paul goes to the Shack and beats Karen’s head in with a shove. Aw, true love. He didn’t want her to suffer. Paul is about to hike to town when he finds Bert.

Owner and his 2 man posse reach the cabin. Seeing the blood and entrails about, they are sure the kids are into sacrifices. They shoot Bert who returns fire before dying. Paul goes all special forces using commando fighting techniques such as screwdriver to the ear and dispatching the last guy.

Paul runs off into the woods, yelling for Jeff to not drink the water.

That night, TOO DARK TO SEE. Paul finds Justin’s body and runs off.

Paul drives off in the Owner’s truck. While spotting the infection on his hand, he runs head-on into a deer. Not a Bambi deer, but the impaled on the windshield kind kicking furiously. Paul manages to shoot it.

Deputy Winston is with a group of teens who are PAH-TAY-ingggggggggggggg when Paul stumbles across them. Winston sent a tow truck which broke down, etc…He also gets a radio call about a mass murder at a cabin and how some of the people have a dangerous skin infection. Paul promptly begins whorfing up blood and sputum (Sorry, don’t get to work that word into many reviews…). The teens start attacking Paul who beats them all down before knocking Winston out.

Paul heads back for the road and collapses in front of a semi that barely avoids flattening him.

Awakening in a hospital, Paul is questioned by the Sheriff and some doctors. They’ll take him to a better hospital and has Winston drive him.

Daylight, Jeff crawls out of a cave. Heading back to the cabin, he finds some of the bodies. After breaking down, he promptly goes into “I’m a Survivor, King of the World,” etc…mode. He is filled with more lead than a pencil factory.

The Sheriff has his deputies stacking the bodies like cordwood on a bonfire. Not that anything out of Night of the Living Dead would be stolen for this movie.

A couple of 5 year old kids gets some water from the lake, not a far distance from Paul’s body. Back at the general store, the kids have set up a lemonade stand and sell some to the Sheriff. We see a spring water truck leave.

What I say:

A couple of years ago, I heard how Cabin Fever was a great horror movie. Didn't take long for plenty of people who came up with the opinion that it was the be all end all horror movies. Eventually, I got curious enough to watch it. Needless to say, Cabin Fever has a pretty divided following from those who think it is the best in the woods horror movie since Evil Dead or those that think of it as a flaming pile of crap. After watching it, honestly, I wasn't really interested in it. This has to be one of the worst movies to be reviwed on my site.

The past few years have seem the remakes of the 70s style horror movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Hills Have Eyes which I have not been interested in those remakes. Over the same time, Eli Roth is being touted as the new great horror director. Whether, it is because of just having so many websites claim he is the cat's pajamas with sliced bread makes me a more hesitant to believe how great the guy is or my contrary, stubborn nature. After watching Cabin Fever, I can safely say that Hostel has only moved a couple of thousand places down on my "movies to review" list just under Odin: Photon Space Sailor Starlight but above Doom Generation.

Gorewise, I've seen worse. Don't think eating lasagna would be a good idea while watching Cabin Fever. Most of the gore is either awfully mean-spirited and not in the splatterstick vein of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2 or Peter Jackson's Dead Alive or not even necessary to the story. What was so important about the bowling alley massacre? Other than a scary story being told at a camp fire, that bit could have been removed without doing anything to the plot at all. It is very rare to find pieces of a movie so completely unnecessary.

A group of college kids who just graduated head off to a cabin in the woods for a week of food, fun, and fornication. While that sounds more like adult entertainment, cruel fate strikes at them. Unfortunately, cruel fate waits so long to strike them. I can't recall ever seeing a movie that had me hope the main characters were axe-murdered, wood-chipper massacred, emasculated by a goat, etc...within 30 seconds of being introduced to them. Unfortunately, it takes well over a half an hour before any of them get their flesh-eating bacterial comeupance.

The typical slasher movie from the 1980s had a group of teens or college students who are systematically eliminated. Whether it was just for gore or because of them breaking the implied moral code which typically curses them to horrible deaths is for a pseudo philosophy/film student to discuss. Yes, the characters lack having the depth of a piece of paper. Actually, the random personality draining teen camp counselors from any Friday the 13th movie you pick would be a well rounded and developed Shakespearean characters compared to Cabin Fever's shaved talking monkeys. Refuse to acknowledge them as humans. It is a given that most characters in horror movies especially in slasher movies are just sex and drug crazed idiots. Calling the characters in Cabin Fever sex and drug crazed idiots makes me want to apologize to the teen counselors from every Friday the 13th and even the ripoffs of the summer camp movies of the 1980s.

If you think of the characters more as the kind of people in movies that are slightly bigger lunchmeat than those packages of Oscar Meyer in the supermarket, you may have found your dream movie. Who do you root for? First "character," we have Bert who is more annoying than Marlon Wayans in Dungeons and Dragons. Bert runs around shoplifting and stealing from everyone he can. That also happens to be his good points. The only reason I could think of why any couples would take him on a week vacation would be he's got lots of money to pay for most of the trip. Running around in the woods, he manages to shoot Henry and rather than take the guy to the doctor. Bert tries to keep the guy away from him. Second, Jeff who is the frat boy who has 2 missions in like get drunk and to pork Marcy more than Petunia Pig with Arnold Ziffel but not in that order. Those happen to be his good points, when things start getting bad, he adopts the isolationist Cartman "Screw you guyz, I'm going home" attitude. Third, Marcy is a nympho. Well, in her case, that is acceptable because she is haughttttttttttt. Leaving the lust factor out of it, she does try to help Karen before realizing she's going to die which leads to her porking Paul more than a sausage factory.

Paul is supposedly the good guy that has had a crush on Karen all his life. Rather than being the nerd who has a crush on the unobtainable dream girl would be shot down faster than Jon Bon Jovi singing "Blaze of Glory", he has odds that are well within the realm of probabilty. Paul has longed for Karen and can look at her across the room and see them in an apartment and doing cute couple stuff when not boning her like the world was about to end. Karen seems to be the only that is bothered by setting Henry on fire. Unfortunately, for her, she drinks the water in direct violation of the Dave Matthews Band Edict (Don't Drink the Water...) and must suffer. Funny, the advice that is given about going to Mexico is the same as what to keep from getting infected in this movie.

I'm sure some people will disagree with my opinion of this movie. That is fine. The movie doesn't have any protagonist to root for...Nightmare on Elm Street had Heather Langenkamp...Friday the 13th had Ginny. Halloween had Laurie Strode. Evil Dead 2 had Ash. Dead Alive had Lionel. What all these movies had in common? Most of these characters the audience could relate to or want to relate to. Still doubt that there are many demon azz-kicking one handed witty one liner dropping rugged men around reading this site. How many drunk gropers running around in the backwoods are outside of Child Bride?

OK, 2 guys realize they beat a guy and set on fire to the farmer lady's cousin and run off. They don't stick around to call for help and just not mention that one fact about setting her cousin on fire. In fact, every house around doesn't have a phone. Later, when Paul finds another house, he spots the naked woman writhing about. Her husband doesn't cotton to a peeping Tom or Paul whatever the case may be. He has absolutley no interest in Paul telling of how his friends are sick.

OK, Bert drives off for help. Dennis, the psycho kid bites his hand. His father gets mad that Bert caused a problem by being sick and infecting Dennis who will infect him and he'll infect his wife. Some idiotic rant about how you should take care of your own problems ensues. The only point of this was to have some people chase Bert back to the cabin. Ever seen any guy go for help claiming he has a sick friend and then you chase after him for being "sick?"

The geography of this place doesn't make much sense. Henry who is sick wanders around for more than a day but can't reach his house. Bert and Jeff reach the place. They need a truck to drive to town. The kids at the end get water from the lake and get back to the general store pretty quick. OK, I spent more time thinking about it than in the movie..

When Henry reaches the cabin, the lunchmeat drive him off and then attack the truck to keep him from driving off to a doctor. The drunken and stoned crowd manage to shoot the truck and beat the windshield and knock quite a few dents into the truck. The deputy who comes by isn't bothered by the fact the truck is covered with so much blood it looks like someone was sacrificed to Cthulu on the hood. Afterwards, the protagonists consider it was Henry's "fault" because they were scared...By the way, I'm still not sure how they managed to "accidentally" set the guy on fire and blame him for it...

I'm leaving the Evil Dead references aside. Leaving out the comparisons of how a small group of people had they stayed together and not divided would have survived like the fracturing of those in the farm house in Night of the Living Dead is hard. Even worse is nearer the end, it gets into more blatant NotLD references. Jeff who survived everything and is shot and killed and thrown on a bonfire of other victims just like Ben in Night of the Living Dead who survived only be doing what middle aged white guy wanted to do, barricade himself and wait it out. However, Jeff wasn't the hero in this case.

What do you say when a pseudo-claymation special about a rock band made of fruits is the most entertaining thing on the DVD especially far more entertaining than the movie, Cabin Fever?

Point to Ponder:
Think about how much grief and misery could have been saved if they drank bottled water.

Quotable Dialogue
"He'll give you tetanus."
"Come on, Dr. Mambo."
"People there are so wacked."
"We lit him on fire! You'll understand if I'm not in a particularly social mood."
"Go back inside have yourself a big 40, just party."
"I don't want to infect everyone."
"Pancakes!"
"I'm still looking for that underage booze party."
Morals of the Story
The sound of flies buzzing is really annoying.
Stealing isn't wrong if you're a complete idiotic jerk.
Police deputies ride bicycles.
Flesh eating viruses get skanks more amorous than a frat guy at last call.
Dogs see in infra-red.
Shaving your legs is relaxing.
Dogs can totally dismember a body in 7 seconds.
A screwdriver to the ear is slightly painful.
Deer blood is tasty.
Sheriffs routinely order their deputies to shoot the sick on sight.
Deputies drive drunk.