Review of Cabin Fever (2003) by Keenan S — 01 Aug 2013

I wasn't expecting much from a movie coming from Eli Roth, who I've only heard bad things about, but I ended up being surprised by how good this film actually was. Unlike "Martyrs", "Cabin Fever" knows how to show just the right amount of gore, no more and no less. It gives enough fun and likable characters to make it worth the watch, this feels like any proper horror film should feel, like a roller coaster ride.

In this tale of survival, a group of five college graduates rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a horrifying flesh-eating virus.

Quentin Tarantino was right when he called Eli Roth "The Future of Horror" after seeing this film, but not in a good way. Every movie now tries to emulate what they did in this movie with bad results, a recent example of this is the remake of "Evil Dead". If only modern horror movies stopped taking themselves so seriously or maybe if they were a little more creative. Its not that they remake other films, its that they put so little effort in doing so. "Black Swan" is practically a remake of "Carrie" mixed with "The Red Shoes" but that movie is something of its own, it gives a twist on the story we already know and for that it's worth watching, if only more horror movies were as enjoyable as this one I'd probably be watching them all the time.

If you haven't already seen it, I can't recommend it any more than I already have, reading the stories about it on wikipedia and IMDB just make the experience even better. Here's one little on-set story about Eli Roth and an actress that didn't want to show too much on-screen so they managed to reach a compromise - Cerina would bare one inch of her buttocks on camera, no more, no less. Eli Roth brought a ruler along to the filming and measured Cerina's buttocks, to be sure he got his one inch.

Here's another cool story: Peter Jackson stopped production on "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" three times to screen this movie for the entire crew. Jackson was so enthusiastic about the film he gave director Eli Roth publicity quotes.

I'd recommend this to anyone who liked "Contagion", zombie movies, "White Dog", "Evil Dead", "The Cabin in the Woods", "An American Werewolf in London".