Review of Cabin Fever (2003) by Agustin M — 30 Sep 2010

I originally saw Cabin Fever when it was released on DVD back in 2002, and I hate it--I thought it was a stupid, pointless piece of horror cinema that attempted to substitute a virus for a slasher. But the film went on to develop a cult status and Roth gained fame from his Hostel films as well as his collaborations with Tarantino, so I began to grow curious about Cabin Fever again: could I have written it off too easily? Then, I saw the trailer for Cabin Fever 2, which seemed to have little connection with the original, but for some inexplicable reason I wanted to see it.

Hence, I decided I must rewatch the original Cabin Fever, and I am glad that I did, for I now found Cabin Fever to be a delightfully hilarious horror-comedy that features plenty of big laughs as well as some genuinely gruesome moments.

A parody of slasher films and redneck horror, Eli Roth's first film is not great horror cinema, but it is damn entertaining as a comedy. The film is rather uneven though because it features some genuinely brutal moments that create an almost whiplash effect in contrast to overall comedic tone of the film.

The film's sense of humor is not quite twisted enough to get the brutal moments to sit beside the comedic moments in perfect equality, a feat that only Rob Zombie ever really achieves. Zombie's laughs, however, never stem from campiness as Roth's do in this film.

Ultimately, Cabin Fever is a hilarious piece of campy horror-comedy trash that does nothing important for the genre but that does provide loads of fun throughout.