Review of Cabin Fever (2003) by Filipeneto — 06 Sep 2020

This film is within the basic teen horror and, despite being unoriginal and overloaded with clichés that we have seen a thousand times in cinema, it works and entertains the public. It even manages to be better than many similar films, and we've seen many! Here, the enemy can be everywhere and, ultimately it turns out to be isolation itself. In fact, the title of the film indicates that, given that "cabin fever", from the point of view of psychology, is a kind of psychosis that arises in groups of isolated individuals in the same place for too long.

The story is simple: five friends go to a forest hut to enjoy themselves after the end of the school year. However, they find there a very sick man with marked red skin. Frightened and fearing that it would be contagious, they try to drive him away but end up killing him. From there, isolated in the middle of nowhere, fear overwhelms them as, one after another, they begin to show signs of the same disease.

Although the script is rather weak and predictable, tension and suspense are skillfully built and, ultimately, this makes the film effective in its task. Unfortunately, I agree with the opinion of many expert critics who pointed the finger at the director, Eli Roth, and said that he sometimes did not know if he was trying to scare us or make us laugh. In fact, the film is both scary and cynical and there are some scenes, particularly closer to the end, where the film seems to accentuate its sarcastic streak. For me, the final part was very weak and showed that Roth (who is also partly responsible for the script) did not know how to end his story. The climax is predictable and conventional and the way all characters behave prevents us from wanting anything other than to see them die, and quickly.

The cast is sufficiently capable for the characters, which are the usual clichés of teen films and do not require effort from the actors. Rider Strong and James DeBello receive two of the strongest and most interesting characters, but the remaining cast hardly deserves a positive note. Joey Kern is highly irritating with so much hypochondria and individualism; Jordan Ladd and Cerina Vincent are there for being sexy at the sex scenes; Giuseppe Andrews is the stupidest cop I've seen in years. The rest is forgettable and does only what it really needs to do.

Technically, it is a film that has not particularly caught my attention. Cinematography is good and uses forest scenes and filming locations skillfully. The special effects are limited to corpses, blood and signs of illness in the cast's bodies, but they work well and are truly frightening.