Campy horror (and now that I think about it, horror that takes place camping) is a crafty little genre for critics. If we drone on about how stupid a movie like this is, we’re clearly missing the point. Yet, if we ignore how, well, stupid a movie like this is, we’re not really giving the film an accurate analysis. That said, Cabin Fever is a pretty good awfully bad film.
When a group of friends, held together primarily by all being self-centered idiots, take a party weekend in America’s backwoods, their encounter with a flesh-eating virus pushes each of them to do unthinkable things to defend themselves. Their failed attempts to get help result in the local authorities on their bad side as well. Will they curse, do drugs and have enough sex to warrant some quality gore? Yes, yes they will.
Eli Roth’s tribute to eighties camp horror is indeed well-intended. Like The Evil Dead and its many imitations, the gore is sticky and absurdist, with an emphasis on decaying flesh and limb separation. The comedy slips in and out of being intentional and the overall philosophy maintains that life is meaningless and death is inevitable for us all.
What works in Cabin Fever’s favor is a series of well-crafted jokes. Seemingly irrelevant setups occur in the first act and meet with worthwhile punch-lines in the last act. One thing cannot be denied – this film is pretty funny.
However, the comedy doesn’t really deliver until the second half of the film, which makes the first half seem unnaturally stilted in pacing and mind-bogglingly redundant. To make an unholy marriage of the awful Dreamcatcher and the dreadful Wrong Turn, is to feel much like wasting everyone’s time. The film is also not helped by a lead, albeit well-played by Rider Strong, who has the macho heroic appeal of a brown piece of paper.
None of the cast is particularly memorable or likeable. Roth does excel at the “posterior angle” shots, highlighting the attractive Cerina Vincent and Jordan Ladd. James DeBello, looking much like SNL’s Drunk Girl throughout the film, gives an entertaining performance that is difficult to judge because of how irritating his character is. The same can be said for Joey Kern’s cowardly role. Giuseppe Andrews is pretty funny as Deputy Winston, an incompetent cop.
Incompetency is a common theme in this type of film, but gaping wholes in rational behavior can be a bit off-putting. When the moron king of our little group of morons comes in contact with a diseased and dying man, he is so quick to forget about it that we see him partying shortly thereafter. Everybody in the film seems to do the exact opposite of what will help them get out of the, uh, sticky situation and this gets a little tiresome.
While the script cleverly orchestrates its humor, it also seems to have no interest in justifying its plot. There is no explanation as to the identification, origins, cure or purpose of this disease and is all but forgotten about once enough people are killed to roll the end credits. The film also takes a rather long yet disgusting journey into a campfire story that involves a random bowling alley massacre. This makes the film more of a splatter expo than a story.
Kurtzman, Nicotero and Berger consistently make cool horror effects and Cabin Fever does, heh-heh, grow on you after a while. But it isn’t particularly scary or inventive in the horror department, making it a rather goofy and unnecessary tribute. C
