Cabin Fever
(2002) 93 Min.
Rated: R (Sex and gore)
Country: USA
Director: Eli Roth
Starring: Rider Strong, Jordan Ladd, James DeBello, Cerina Vincent, Joey Kern, Eli Roth, Giuseppe Andrews, Richard Fullerton
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
A group of college kids decide to go on a vacation to a cabin in the woods and end up fighting to stay alive amid a deadly contagion.
Synopsis:
A hermit goes hunting in the woods and returns home to find his dead dog. When he opens his dead dog, blood splatters onto his face.
Meanwhile, five college graduates are ready to go on vacation in a cabin in the woods. Paul (Strong), Karen (Ladd), Marcy (Vincent), Jeff (Kern), and Bert (DeBello) stock up on goods and end up at the cabin. Jeff and Marcy are in a relationship. Paul has a crush on his childhood friend Karen.
Bert goes out to hunt for squirrels and ends up shooting the man seen at the start of the movie. He is sick and looks bloody. Bert warns him to stay away.
At night the group hang out around a campfire. Paul tells a traumatizing murder that happened in his town. Then a stoner named Justin A.K.A. Grim (Roth) who was walking his dog stops by and the group welcomes him only when they discover he has a large bag of weed with him.
The group wait inside the cabin for Grim to return with weed, but instead the hermit from before stops by. He wants help but Bert prevents them from letting him in and tells them that he’s contagious. The hermit starts up their truck. The group go outside and try to get him out of the car, meanwhile the hermit is vomiting blood inside their car. Paul sets the man on fire while he warns him to stay away. The hermit then runs into the woods while on fire.
A storm begins and the group decide to report the “accident” the next day to the police. The next day the men argue over what to do and Marcy walks off to get help.
The camera pans over the body of the dead hermit in the river and a pipe that pumps water from the river.
Everyone else has left and Paul and Karen are in the cabin alone. Karen is traumatized by seeing the hermit set on fire. They both admit they were scared and share an embrace. Karen drinks from a glass of water (which has the river water).
At a nearby farm Bert and Jeff meet a woman who is willing to help them, but once they figure out that the hermit they set on fire was her cousin named Henry, they run out of the building and decide to head into town on their own.
Marcy ends up finding Bert and Jeff in an empty house.
A deputy Winston (Andrews) checks out the area and Paul talks to him about the hermit last night. Winston says he’s a party guy and that he’ll send a tow-truck for them by the afternoon of the next day. He then gets on his bicycle and pedals away.
Bert and Jeff then start to clean the banged up truck. Later, Paul lies down with Karen and starts to touch her. When Paul looks at his hand he finds it covered in blood. Karen has been ill and is now infected.
The group decides to put her in a shed. She reluctantly goes along with them and stays in the shed.
The group grows increasingly paranoid of each other and start to squabble. Bert starts to drink from a cup of water.
The next day, Bert manages to get the car running. The group go to collect Karen and she is bloody and unconscious in the shed. They help her up and move her out.
Bert starts coughing up blood, but hides this from everyone else. He takes the truck and leaves the rest of them behind, promising to call a doctor for Karen. Jeff takes some beer and decides to strike out on his own, feeling that the others touched Karen too much and are probably infected too.
Marcy is depressed and talks about feeling like they’re all going to die so she at least wants to have sex since they’ll die anyway. Paul and Marcy then have sex.
Bert stops by the same general store they stopped at at the start of their trip. The owner’s son comes out and bites Bert on the hand. He then threatens Bert with a gun, since by his logic, Bert has got his son sick. Bert retreats to the truck and drives off.
The town locals tail Bert’s truck. The truck stops at a ditch in the woods, so Bert heads out on foot.
Meanwhile, Paul decides to find Jeff and go to town by foot. As he’s looking for Jeff, he finds the rotted corpse of the hermit in the water. He walks down a wooden ladder to get a better look, but the ladder breaks, sending him into the same water. He climbs out and sees the sign above the area that reads “Reservoir : Restricted.” He then runs off to warn the others.
Marcy is infected and crying in the bath tub. She tries to shave, but instead scrapes up more skin. When she runs out of the cabin in horror, the dog outside chases her. She stops at the shed where Karen is kept and tries to get inside, but the dog gets to her first.
Paul arrives on the scene with a gun, but is too late to save Marcy. He sees the dog inside the shed eating parts of Karen. The dog sees him and starts to chase him, but he manages to shoot the dog. Paul enters the shed and turns over Karen’s body to see part of her face deteriorated. She is still alive, so Paul gets a shovel to kill her and end her suffering.
When Paul is about to leave he finds Bert, bloodied, on the porch. He warns Paul that “they’re coming” for him. Paul drags Bert inside the cabin.
The three towns men finally arrive to the cabin. They manage to kill Bert, but Paul hits one of them in the face, who kills another of his own men on accident. Paul then drives a screwdriver into the ear of the third. Paul runs into the forest calling for Jeff and screaming for him to not drink the water.
Paul finds a cave that has a light glowing in it, and sees a flash light. As he enters the cave he finds the decomposing body of Justin/Grim. He runs out, finds a truck and starts to drive the truck. A deer surprises him in the road and he hits it, covering him with blood. He also sees signs of himself being infected. The truck is dead, so he decides to walk.
Paul happens upon a small party with Deputy Winston hanging out with under age drinkers. The Sheriff (Fullerton) calls him and warns Winston that if he sees any of the infected kids from the cabin, to shoot them on sight. Paul still approaches them and manages to cough up blood on one of the kids at the party. Everyone leaves. Deputy Winston is left with Paul. Paul knocks him out and runs out into a nearby road to flag down help.
Paul manages to stop an 18-wheeler and the driver drops him off at the nearest hospital. At the hospital the sheriff tries to question him, but there’s not much that can be asked as Paul is in a state of delirium. The sheriff promises to “take care” of Paul.
Jeff arrives at the cabin, he sees the carnage and blood everywhere. He starts to celebrate that he “Made it!” past all his friends and lived. Just as he walks out of the cabin he is shot by the sheriff and his crew.
The sheriff and his crew burn Jeff’s body along with any of the other bodies on the property.
Two children take a water-cooler to fill it with water in the river. The camera pans upstream to a dead Paul, whose body lies half in the water. Later, the children are seen selling lemonade to the sheriff and his men with the very same water from the cooler.
As the film ends, we see that the 18 wheeler is carrying “Down Home Spring Water” from town, to spread it to regions who drink bottled water.
Review:
This film is supposed to be a little tongue-in-cheek, a little bit satire but also a horror.
For me there just seems to be a complete lack of suspense and horror. The humor is a little flat, too. And the only real energy happens towards the last 30 minutes or so of the film. There’s no real connection to these shallow characters and we don’t feel compelled to care for them if they die.
The only really funny scene for me was “Dennis” who loved “pancakes”.
I would also have to say that part of this film might suffer from post-90’s early 2000’s fashion. Everything looks a bit 90’s, from the chunky heeled boots, to the bell-bottom pants worn in that time. I completely didn’t expect the film to look that way, for some reason.
The pacing is slow and a bit boring. I think only fans of Eli Roth’s horror films should watch this. Others might not be so entertained. It reminds me a bit of Scream and Cabin in the Woods, except those films were done better.
Note: Pancakes! clip. Honestly, this could be seen out of context. It’s just absurd humor.