Last year, I kept hearing about a new horror film that was taking preview audiences by storm. “Cabin Fever” was reported to have everything a good horror film fan looks for in their movies… blood, gore, T&A, gore, blood and even a little T&A. It unashamedly touted itself as using every trick in the book to bring horror fans into the theatre and boasted an original screenplay based on previously used ideas and concepts. Hmmm… The basic premise of the film was this: a group of teenage friends decide to spend the weekend in a cabin in the woods. Their fun-filled weekend quickly turns bad as they deal with crazed townsfolk, mountain people, partying cops, dogs, a flesh-eating virus and ultimately each other. Kinda sounds like every weekend some of today’s college students have. I think writer / director Eli Roth has learned the real secret to making a good low-budget horror film. You have to have a sense of humor.

Evidence of Roth’s peculiar sense of humor is scattered throughout his feature film “Cabin Fever” as well as its DVD release. The film itself is kind of hard to describe. It goes off into all kinds of tangents as you can imagine by my brief description above. It did deliver everything it promised, however. There was plenty of blood and gore, and thanks to the fine folks at KNB FX, they were often cringe-inducing. The idea of the flesh-eating virus itself is enough to make me squirm, but actually seeing the results… eewwwwwwww. The term, “Say it, don’t spray it” really applies here.

“Cabin Fever” isn’t the best horror movie I’ve ever seen, but it was a fairly fun ride. It did take a while to really get going, though. Once it got past he first half hour, the pace started to pick up and it moved along well. The only weakness I found in the film was from the actors themselves. Overall, they did a pretty good job during the horrific scenes, but most of the dialogue came off a bit lackluster. This was more evident in the peripheral characters than the main actors.

The DVD release of “Cabin Fever” gets very high marks from me for its creativity and humor laden menus and features. Right from the start, the menu utilizes one of the uncomfortable scenes from the movie to set up the selections. If you’re a commentary freak, you’ll have one hell of a time with this disc. There are 5 separate commentaries. Roth takes part in all of them, but they are split up into ‘the guys’, ‘the girls’, ‘the filmmakers’ and then one with actor Rider Strong (that CANNOT be his real name). Oh, and Roth also throws in a commentary all his own. These commentaries pretty much go off into all kinds of directions, much like the movie itself, and they can get a little repetitive. Spreading them out over a couple of weekends is probably your best bet, or you can jump back and forth between them through one viewing.

What I thought was going to be a pretty standard “Making of…” featurettes actually turned out to be a funny behind the scenes look. It runs about 30 minutes and deftly mixes Roth’s humor with some real information. There are also three fairly amusing claymation shorts about a band made up of various fruits that Roth ‘produced’ a few years back. But the two features I really thought were hysterically funny were the ‘Family Friendly’ version of the film and ‘Chick-Vision’ version. The first one is an edited version of the movie that is suitable for the whole family to watch. I always thought this would be a good idea for some R-rated movies, but Roth took the idea a little too far. You’ll see why. By setting up the ‘Chick Vision’ feature, all the really gorey scenes of the film are covered up by a pair of onscreen hands. Silly, but brilliant.

The last feature on the disc is a little strange and almost as disturbing as the movie itself. It’s called “Pancakes”, the title of which you’ll understand when you see the movie. It offers a short video of the odd little kid in the movie doing a series of marital arts moves to a song called “Gay Bar.” As I said, it’s a little strange…

“Cabin Fever” certainly lives up to all the hype surrounding it, and aside from some of its more absurd aspects, I enjoyed the heck out of it. And the DVD features alone make this a disc worth having. My viewing experience did teach me that some people might not like it as much as I did, however. My wife turned to me when it was over and said, “That was awful.” Of course, I did see her grimace or cringe at all the appropriate scenes, so I think she got out of it what she was supposed to. Perhaps I should have turned on the ‘Chick Vision’ mode. Hee Hee.

Directed by: Eli Roth
Starring: Rider Strong, Jordan Ladd, James Debello, Cerina Vincent, Joey Kern
Extras: Director’s Shorts – The Rotten Fruit, Five Feature-Length Commentaries, Beneath the Skin – The Making of Cabin Fever, Family Friendly Version, Pancakes!, Chick-Vision
Specifications: Widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Studio: Lion’s Gate
Release Date: 1/20/2004
Region 1
MPAA Rating: R
Website

We'll give Cabin Fever a B+.