Err, right?

Now this is a story all about how some kids lives got flipped, turned upside. I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, to tell you how they became victims of Cabin Fever... which kinda rhymes if you pronounce it "fee-vair", but all "Fresh Prince" lyrical parodies aside, I've got a review to do. Where's this review start? In some wooded area. What wooded area? Hell, they all look the same, so don't get so anal retentive on me, okay? The story isn't in the details, it's in the story which is in the movie which I'm reviewing and that's all right with me.

In this random forested locale we find a grungy trapper man collecting his morning kill and returning to his cart with a rabbit. Not as observant as the viewers, MC VonTrap dangles a rabbit carcass in front of his obviously dead canine friend and acts shocked when Poochy won't stop lying there with his mouth opened, eyes glazed, and tongue protruding. Then, somewhat to my surprise, Sir Trapsalot (don't worry, I'll stop after this one) reaches down to yank Fluffy's leg, only to find that his pet's less an animal now and more a meat hinge, i.e. one half of the dog pulls apart from the other with no guts or other parts holding it together from the inside... ewww. To top it off, the trapper gets a projectile blood loogie in the eye before we leave him to the clutches of whatever ate his doggie pal from the inside out. Where are we off to now? A truckload of college kids... always with the college kids.

Alright, what are we dealing with this time? This has to be the 317th group of college/high school students heading to their dooms in a horror movie I've seen in the past 6 years alone, so what's to distinguish these boys and girls from those in, say, Evil Dead, Pumpkinhead or Friday the 13th? Sadly, in spite of the chronological gap, nothing. Does this come as a shock to you? No, I didn't think it would. Good for you. Since we're all on the same page, let's catch up with the movie, cuz Ben Savage's best friend from "Boy Meets World" just got bit by some inbred backwoods bumpkin albino monkey boy and I have no idea why...

Okay, upon further rewinding and replaying, we've got our five college cohorts: the sensitive, "boy next door" Teen Beat cover boy Paul (Rider "Boy Meets World" Strong); his life long friend, potential love interest and cute blond Karen (Jordan "Embrace of the Vampire" Ladd); Jeff (Joey "Super Troopers" Kern) with his thinning hair and overactive libido; his "fill my hole now!" girlfriend, the brunette Marcie (Cerina "Not Another Teen Movie" Vincent); and their big goofy party animal friend Bert (James "Scary Movie 2" DeBello). The quintet are on their way to a little vacay in the woods, celebrating their conclusion of college finals. On the way they stop at a typical "mom & pop" type general store where Paul tries to make friendly with a freaky white haired kid on a porch swing, only to get a snappy new set of the kid's dental records forever imprinted into his right hand. The brat's dad comes to our protagonist's rescue with a baseball bat and a bad wig (or dye job) and offers the kindly apologies of "Everybody knows not to sit next to Dennis!" and "There's a stream around back ya wanna wash your hand. I'll get ya a towel". Well, at least he offered to get him a towel...

Paul's friends also offer up their condolences by going into the store and not bothering to ask if their pal's okay or accompany him to the aforementioned stream. Inside the store is even scarier than the pitbull Pauly encounters out back though, as a whiny voiced old man behind the counter (if Andy Dick's got a grandfather...) regales in stories of his younger days, teaches the kids what bottled fox urine is for (and these boys and girls say they went to college!?) and keeps a rifle around "for the niggers". Oh boy...

Freshly stocked with supplies the gang continues on to their cabin-in-the-middle-of-nowhere destination, just begging for some kind of chainsaw killer, ancient demonic entity or mutant grizzly bear with a turtle for a head to some crashing down on them with primal fury and insatiable hunger. Sure enough, while Paulie boy and Karen are off swimming and flirting (like opposite sex friends do so painfully often... for the guy anyway) and Jeff and his bimbo are busy breaking in their temporary bed/alter the gods of bump 'n' grind, the hapless Bert (who has no romantic foil aside from the squirrels he uses for target practice) accidentally shoots an ailed man we all know as HR Trappin'stuff... Hey, I meant "last one for that paragraph", not "last one for this review", so don't get your tiny shorts into a bunch Kenny. You signed the contract, now live with the consequences.

Anyway, Lumpy shoots the trapper guy and freaks out. He freaks out moreso though when he sees just how sick and falling apart the guy is. And when the creep comes a little too close to Bertholomew for his comfort? Goofy boy unloads a round at Paul Infected Bunyon's feet that sends the sicko reeling back into the hole Bert found him in. A real humanitarian that boy. In his panic, our lovable lug returns to the cabin, not uttering a word about his encounter with the disheveled infectoid. Later on, whilst telling tales of bowling alley killers, some skater X-Games refugee named Grim ("As in 'Grimace'?", played by writer-director-producer Eli Roth) and his dog Dr. Mambo stop by to share their chronic with our five flops. Sure enough a second guest stops by and when they don't let Senor Contagion into their cabin, he tries to steal their car... and winds up puking blood all over the place! While they're trying to fend him off they accidentally set the fuck a flame and he scampers off screaming into the woods. They then spend the rest of the night trying to figure out their story and waiting in fear in case the freak should return. He won't be back anytime soon though, as he's died in the local water supply... See where this is going? Remember the ending scene of Food of the Gods? Bingo was his name-o.

The next morning, Jeff and Bert go off in search of help in one direction while Marcy goes off in the other... apparently with the intention of getting herself lost in what could be miles and miles of uncivil woodlands... in case I wasn't clear enough before, allow me to say it again: always with the college kids. Bert and Ernie Jeff find their way to a nearby farm where they find an ox of a woman slaughtering a pig, only to go into a tirade about the recent rash of diseased animals she's had to deal with as of late, completely unfazed by the sudden appearance of two strangers on her property just so long as she's got a kind ear or four to complain to. Yeah, broads are crappy like that. Well, Big Momma invites the two into her house to use her radio to call the local mechanic (obviously phones are too novel for this crowd), but when the dynamic duo realizes the leper they burned alive last night was her cousin Henry, they lose any and all personal stability and fumble over each other heading out the door. Obviously not two guys you'd want backing you up during a bank robbery or calling into work for you to tell your boss you've got "food poisoning".

One fake scare later, Marcy finds Bert and Jeff at a house across the lake whose occupants are apparently out, probably carving the local track & field team up with weed whackers or something. While Bert eats the beef jerky of someone he's never met, a local deputy (who looks like Sam and Ted Raimis' little brother) stops by the cabin and it's up to Paul to come up with a plausible story in one of the most bizarre cop scenes I've ever had the confusion of watching... was he hitting on Paul or just trying to get an invite to their "party"? Weird. Meanwhile, Karen's not feeling so good. Do I smell an infection? Oh wait, that's me... sorry. Whatever the smell, it looks like tragedy for poor Paul. The lesson here? Wait too long to tell the girl that you're into that you love her, and she'll die of a degenerative blood disease before you can do anything about it.

Paul tries a session of nap time finger music on his snoozing Kare Bear (come on, who amongst us hasn't initiated a little light unconscious molestation of a friend from time to time?), but when he goes south of the border he finds everything's already wet and sloppy. Unless she's on her period and forgot her tampons, I'd say Paul is officially fucked and not in the way he's been turning Japanese over, being "just friends" with Karen and all. Bert's quick to quarantine Karen in her room, threatening to beat the shit out of her should she attempt to get out... again, not exactly a friend I'd be keeping company with. Something tells me he's the type who would put a bullet between his mom's eyes if he saw a bloody tampon swimming in their toilet. As for Karen, locking her up in the house isn't enough so her "friends" ship her out into a nearby barn and lock her up there. I'm telling you, this is all gonna turn into some kind of wacky "Oh, she was just on the rag!" ending, you watch! Oh well, at least they left her some cigarettes...

While out looking for help again Paul finds another house, this one inhabited by a guy and his wife, but when the husband catches Paul peeking in on his wife rolling around naked in bed, he sends Pauly packing into the woods with threats of shotgun discharge in the boy's ass. So, instead of everyone going back and explaining to the prick what's going on, Paul makes no mention of it and instead they spend the night being paranoid hypochondriacs. The next morning they finally fix up their car, but as they're getting ready to go we notice Bert hawking up a few plasma goobers of his own, of which he of course tells no one. But, the others take notice and Bert freaks out, has enough of their bullshit and drives off to find a doctor on his own. Paul and Marcie are left to care for the increasingly ill Karen, and as far as Jeff's concerned, he's not taking any chances... but he is taking as much beer as possible with him when he runs off into the woods and warns his friends to stay away from him... so, with nothing left to lose, Marcie fucks Paul... after which Paul pours Listerine™ all over his member as part of their new "Hey all you sexually active teens and twenty-somethings! We kill germs! All kinds of germs!" campaign.

On a side note, Warner-Lambert issued a public statement soon after the movie's release stating that their product Listerine™ is not a cure for any sexually transmitted diseases, despite what the writers of Cabin Fever may lead you to believe. No, really, I got the official FDA notice around here somewhere...

Bert makes it back to the general store in one piece, but when he gets there the spooky albino kid leaps off the porch, goes all Gymkata through the air and sinks his fangs into the infected hand of Mr. Bert, all the while screaming "PANCAKES!"...

WHAT?! I... I... WHAT?!?!?!?! I'm gonna need a few minutes to let that sink in... okay, maybe an hour... or a week... I... WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?!?!?!?!?

Whatever is was that just happened to me, Dennis's dad starts making insane accusations that by being sick Bert just murdered his son, so he and his lumpy headed sidekick hop into their Ford pick-up ("Like a rock!") and start a good ol' fashioned chase down on the comedy relief! Back at camp, Paul's curiosity signs his death warrant when he finds Henry's charred body in the reservoir and is overcome by the grade school passion to poke the BBQed redneck with a stick... then falls into the water right on top of the corpse in question... blech.

As for Marcie, she takes a bath and starts shaving the mangled flesh from her body, then runs screaming outside to the waiting jaws of a dog infected with the virus... and what a dog it is if it can rip a full grown woman into Beggin Strips™ in a matter of seconds... and it's not even a Cujo-sized mutt at that.

Paul finds and kills the dog after it starts feeding on Karen, then lays into her with a pick-ax to put her out of her misery. As for Bert, well, he's still off running from the gun-toting locals. He makes it back to the cabin though, a few new wounds to add to his collection as the shooters too find their way to the house that infection built. And things just go balls out crazy from there...

Busting into the cabin, the hicks find Bert and splatter his brain matter on the walls, but the one that looks like Captain Spaulding in House of 1000 Corpses also finds a hatchet planted across his face courtesy of Paul! He then falls to the ground and his shotgun discharges, painting the cabin with his buddy's guts, leaving Paul to plant a screwdriver into the fat retarded guy's ear and impale the injured guy with a stick! Four words: dis movie gone crazy!

After dishing out a bucket of unadulterated city vengeance on the gun happy rednecks, Paul flees into the woods to find Jeff before he consumes any of the poisoned water, finding the dismembered torso of his 5 minute friend Grim before finally deciding to say "fuck it" and make a break for town in the rednecks' truck. Not like they'll be using it at this point.

Sure enough, Paul's bad luck sticks it's tongue in his ear yet again, as he not only notices some unhealthy looking discoloration on his hand but hits a dear with the truck. It sits on the hood, flailing in pain (yet not making a single sound oddly enough) until Jeff unloads some buckshot in the beast and gets sprayed with it's gore. Mmmmmm, that's good eatin'!

Now walking to town, our hero happens upon a high school drinkin' party headed by none other than Deputy "Party Boy" Winston. The shindig is quickly dissipated, as you can imagine, when everyone attacks Paul based on police reports that there are teens on a rampage killing everyone. Paul pukes up some blood on some of 'em, smacks the deputy upside the head with a stick and sends everyone bolting in utter terror and confusion. Making it to the road he's picked up by a trucker and delivered to a hospital where he's cleaned up and questioned by the fuzz as to the origin of his disease. He breaks down into a blabbering mess and the cops take him out to "deal with him properly", i.e. "LAPD properly". As for Jeff, well, despite being a dickhead, it looks like he might make it out of these woods after all...

Oh, except for the cops who shoot him up as he steps out of the cabin in chants of "I MADE IT! I KNEW IT! I FUCKING MADE IT!". The fuzz burns the corpses, then hit the general store for a few glasses of delicious lemonade made with the waters from their own reservoir...

See, toldja: Food of the Gods. As for the old man's "nigger gun"? Well, the African-American stereotypes in question stop by to pick it up, having left it there to be polished up by their elderly white homey... And we end on a good ol' rendition of "Swing Low Sweet Chariot"...

Okay, wait a second...

No, I officially cannot process this movie. Pardon me while I blow my brains out.

That was fun.

Okay, let me process these images and see what the judges say...

*Insert information processing type noises here*

Peeling away the pure insanity of the movie (re: the crazy action sequences and the ENTIRE ENDING), Cabin Fever's basic structural frame is that of a classic scare flick. All the paranoia reminds me of Night of the Living Dead, only the external catalyst of the zombies has been replaced with the internal catalyst of Eli Roth's cinematic Ebola. No longer do the characters fear the plague and it's carriers getting into their sanctuary, but they're instead terrified of both their plague carrying friends inside the house and the fear of the strange and unknown surroundings outside! Their single bastion of comfort and escape (the cabin) is completely compromised, the only friends they have in this place (each other) suddenly become their biggest fears, and the cause of their nightmare isn't some zombie or werewolf or robot gorilla with a diving helmet for a head that they can run away from or throw a TV at, but a virus for which there's no cure or escape... except maybe a lot of orange juice...

The movie plays well on viewers' more realistic fears of real life killers such as disease, combined with the additional fear most people identify with of being strangers in a strange land, topped with the horror icing of losing and fearing the only support you had up until this point: your friends. If the concept is so "great" though, then were did it all fall apart Anubis? Where all good ideas go bad: the execution... and the ramping up of the ridiculous factor. The acting wasn't so bad. The effects were okay, which is saying a lot in this age of bad CGI. The pacing wasn't all that great though. I think there probably could've been a good 15 or so minutes shaved off the final tally and it wouldn't have hurt the story what-so-ever. A little too much running around the woods and looking for help for my tastes. As for the crazy senseless shit that was going on, all I can ask is WHY?! Sure, the craziness made me sit up and take note and these scenes will help people identify the movie from the plethora of cookie cutter "lost in the woods" movies on the shelves, but who says that's a good thing?! They didn't help garner my favor and they sure as fuck didn't keep everybody I know who saw this movie from condemning it to the "one time use only" pile.

Me personally though, in final judgement, I liked the movie's energy, it's basic concept, most of the gore and even the actors, but could've done without the goofy parts and maybe a little more trimming for pace's sake. I liked it enough that I added to my collection though!... used... for $1 off of e-Bay... Good job Eli, I enjoyed the flick much for the most part and that's more than I can say for a lot of director/writer/producers' freshman projects!

Before I go though, is that dog a professor?
"Yeah, he's a professor... OF BEING A DOG!"