Cabin Fever - Hot Damn!

[Neon Noodle]

I can't believe I missed out on seeing this one in the theater!

The dvd kicks butt, with all kinds of goofy extras, and of course an easter egg for 3 trailers is on the main menu.

This one had the gore factor off the bloody charts!

Anyone else catch this? I thought the ending was a bit of a letdown; but all in all if you're looking for a good horror flick, this one totally fits the bill!

PANCAKES!!!!!!

[Brother Ragnarok]

The movie rocked in the theater.  All the kiddies expecting the next safe teenie horror movie were screaming and squirming in their seats.  

Brother R

[Eirik]

Wow - I was gonna let this one slip by after all the reviews (both professional and from friends) I heard about it - extremely negative.  Now I'll give it a shot.  Thanks guys (and I hope your posts weren't sarcastic!).

You see?  This is why I come to this site.

[Ash]

Ummmm...

Eirik, you may not want to heed that advice.  
By all means watch it but be prepared to be disappointed in the film as a whole.

I just rented and watched Cabin Fever tonight and well.....

I kept waiting to see all this disguting gore and have my socks blown off but that did not happen suprisingly.

True, it does have a few funny moments which are all provided by the local rednecks...especially the shopkeeper but other than that, I found this film to be rather dull and more appropriately, BORING.  

It did have one decent shock scene where I said aloud, "Oh s**t!" and that was the screwdriver scene.

I was not gossed out....the gore in this movie was way too tame.  
I use Dead Alive as a basis of comparison to any other movie that's gory and this one didn't come within 10 light years of the gore in Dead Alive.

I was not scared....this is not a frightening movie.

The only frightening thing is what would be in my thoughts as to what becomes of the townsfolk in the end after they.....uh...well I don't want to give it away.  You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it.  

I didn't give one rats ass about any of the characters or what happened to them....the last half hour goes so over the top that it doesn't seem to work...at least that's how I saw it.

I don't know....I just can't put my finger on EXACTLY why I didn't really care for this film.

Roger Ebert said it best in his review of this film which he gave 1 and 1/2 stars out of 4 (which I do feel is appropriate)...he said:  
"Unsure of whether it wants to be a horror film, a comedy, a homage, a satire or a parable, "Cabin Fever" tries to cover every base; it jumps around like kids on those arcade games where the target lights up and you have to stomp on it."

He also goes on to say:
"If some of this material had been harnessed and channeled into a disciplined screenplay with a goal in mind, the movie might have worked. But the director and co-author, Eli Roth, is too clever for his own good, and impatiently switches among genres, tones and intentions. There are truly horrible scenes (guy finds corpse in reservoir, falls onto it), over-the-top horrible scenes (dogs have eaten skin off good girl's face, but she is still alive), and just plain inexplicable scenes (Dennis, the little boy at the general store, bites people). By the end, we've lost all interest. The movie adds up to a few good ideas and a lot of bad ones, wandering around in search of an organizing principle."

Ebert was right, by the end I HAD lost all interest.

It seems like Ebert put my finger on what I was getting at for me.

Go here to read his entire review:  

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2003/09/091205.html

Maybe another viewing at a later date might change my mind but I doubt it.
This film had a strange blandness about it that I cannot describe.  
You'll understand when you see it.

Sorry folks.
I only recommend this for a one-time viewing maybe on a Saturday night with the wife or girlfriend and that's it.



Post Edited (01-26-04 04:02)

[TC]

I thought it was really interesting until the ending....It came across as if they didn't know how to end the movie, so they just threw together a goofy ending that ruined everything up until that point, for me.  




SPOILERS....

I also didn't like how the movie ripped off the ending to Night of the Living Dead....I totally didn't buy into having the a***ole guy come back to the cabin to find out he was right, and then jump around in glee.....Just so he could get shot in the head by the police and put on a bonfire.  Lame.

And what was up with that kid doing Matrix-like karate stuff right near the end.  Again, goofy and stupid.

[ashcampbell]

how hot is that chick who goes out with the blonde jock though!

wasnt she in hang time or something? mary jane?

[jmc]

I generally liked it, and yes, I thought it was fairly gory for a horror film in wide release these days.  It wasn't that there was gore in great quantity, but that the scenes with gore were unpleasant.  I saw people actually leaving the theater after the gory parts, which is something I've never seen happen.  I think they came back, but it was obvious they were really grossed out.  

Dead Alive isn't really a good criteria, because it's a comedy and the gore doesn't really affect you the way it does in a real horror film.        
 
In my opinion, the film just went too far afield with the comedy.   I agree with Ebert there--some of the characters have no reason to be there and the movie comes to a halt when they're on screen.  But I was never bored with it, which is more than I can say for 28 Days Later, for instance.

Still, it sounds like this DVD is a case of overkill.

[Eirik]

Man, I just rented and watched this movie and I have to come down firmly in ASHTHECAT's camp on this one.  Let's see how much random disjointed s**t we tack on to try to enliven our boring and overused plotline.  It just seemed like the kind of movie that people who smoke a lot of pot would think was awesome.  The scarey parts didn't scare me, the comedy parts didn't make me laugh.  The only two good things I saw about this movie were the two girls.

Let me ask you this: if you and a buddy were taking those two chicks up to a cabin in the woods, would you have invited the moron in the green hat?  I went on plenty of trips like that and never invited single friends that I LIKED, much less squirrel-shooting mouth-breathers who couldn't tell a beebee gun from a magazine-loaded rifle.

Unless you were kidding, Neon Noodle, your opinion of movies carries much less weight with me from this day forward.

[Neon Noodle]

Eh - to each his own, I guess. I am so sick of the Scream-type movies that have been out for the last decade that pass as horror movies. This one had overused plotlines, yes. But seeing a film that didn't skimp on the gore was actually refreshing.
If you didn't like it, no worries. Plenty of other folks on this board to get critiques from.

[ashcampbell]

i saw this movie at the cinema......the only good thing except the chicks (especially the brown haired one) was the fact that "The Germ" from two guys and a girl played that party cop

[Max Gardner]

Yeah, this movie was fun, worth watching once or maybe twice.  Once you realize it's a very gory comedy rather than a straight-up horror flick the enjoyment factor is much more apparent.  Loved the Pancakes thing, and the Pancakes featurette on the DVD.  All in all, nothing particularly amazing, but it's a decent first effort and it's hardly the mainstream teen slasher we were all expecting.

[SkullNinja]

I didn't like Rider Strong (between his name and his poofie looks, I think gay porn star every time I see him). The rest of the cast was pretty good though.

[Genetic Mishap]

I didn't like the movie much. The characters remind me way too much of my classmates to not hate them.

Thing that sticks out in my memory: when you see the mullet kid for the first time, when he's sitting in a swing with a can of Welch's; the instant I saw it I thought,  "Wow, the Welch's grape juice girl really let herself go!"

[ashcampbell]

ha ha, welch's girl......thats a good one!.

i still cant get over that chick out of hang time though! how hot has she got!

['Velvet Brotha]

I saw this movie and boy was it sick! I think I probably would have enjoyed it more had I seen it when I was eighteen. Don't get me wrong... I did like it but it made me a little queasy. Not my idea of a good time... : ( I still give it 3 stars though. I know, I know... you guys are gonna start pelting me with rocks. ; )