Cabin Fever

Celebrating their graduation Paul (Strong), Karen (Ladd), Jeff (Kern), Marcy (Vincent) and Bert (DeBello) rent a woodland cabin. When an extremely ill hermit covered in bloody lesions interrupts their first night of partying begging for help, the five friends are spooked and try and drive him away, not wanting to catch whatever he is suffering from. Thinking they are safe they return to their vacation not knowing that one of them has caught the illness and they all could now be exposed.

The renaissance of the horror movie on the big screen has been promised for a long time but Hollywood has failed to deliver as the quality scares have been coming from Asian cinema.Fright fests like Ringu (The Ring), Dark Water and The Eye have terrified audiences worldwide and Hollywood has taken notice by buying the remake rights. But what of the more home grown US horror movie?

Originality seems to be a major problem for the genre in the States. Beautiful young people are the only prey, monsters roam their streets and High Schools and gore is their stable diet. Jeepers Creepers, Freddy Vs Jason, and Final Destination, the list is endless and there is nothing to differentiate between any of them. Cabin Fever is no different.

While it has a slight air of originality when it comes to the killer, a deadly virus, the rest of the movie is nothing new. Five young friends renting a cabin in the woods, where the locals are slightly strange and untrusting of strangers. The film combines so many elements from other movies that nothing is new and there are no real surprises.

The performances are fine and the actors do their best with a very limited script. Cerina Vincent and Jordan Ladd are very attractive and successfully put across the feeling of fear. Rider Strong isn't a bad lead as Paul but James DeBello is a tad annoying, making you wonder why the rest of the friends wanted him around.

As with a lot of movies in this genre, plot points are never really truly explained. Where did the virus come from, what is it, why do people still drink unfiltered or cleaned water? The list goes on. A lot of these questions have to be asked to co-writer/director Eli Roth. While he gives the movie a great look and style, the lack of coherent plot details and sloppy editing make the film abit of a mess. You can tell he is trying to pay homage to 1970s horror movies and he even throws in a couple of plot twists but his doesn't make the film anything more than average.

American horror movies are in need of a huge injection of originality. Once they can move away from the clichéd killing of young people and offer us some genuine frights for our money, they will just have to rely on the more creative foreign filmmakers to produce movies that they can buy the rights to remake.

5 separate audio commentaries, A 40 minute featurette hosted by director Eli Roth, 'Beneath The Skin': a behind the scenes featurette, The Rotten Fruit (3 Episodes), TV spots, Theatrical trailer, Interactive menu & Scene access

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2003