Review of Cabin Fever: Patient Zero (2014) by Mirza Mohd S — 02 Dec 2014

I am not really a fan of gross out movies or stomach churning moments, I usually try my best to stay clear of movies who try to cash in on such concepts. Having said that I had seen the original directed by Eli Roth & Im pretty sure many people would disagree with me on these but I absolutely loved it! Even though I missed the sequel, which was apparently more disgusting & hated by most, I was keenly interested in this so called prequel, which promised to revolve around how the gruesome virus originally broke out.

Ultimately as I had suspected the film fails badly! Made on such a low budget, this movie needed A LOT of personality to work and, sadly, it just doesn't have it. There are some down and dirty fun moments, some legitimately stomach churning, shocking gore moments with great makeup effects, but these moments are few and far between.

Too much of the movie comes down to dull characters wondering around and doing stupid things that don't make much sense until they finally die.The film lacks the clever wit and nasty thrills that made the first one memorable.

In terms of production values, this movie looks like a SyFy original and while it's not nearly that bad, it just isn't that good either. It's more serious in tone than the original. Sure there were some nice moments here and there, but it was just like the entire movie was directed by a randy teenager.

The whole point behind a prequel was clearly misunderstood here, instead of answering the questions set up by the previous film, this film ends up with more questions, like what is the virus? why is Sean Astin's character immune to it? Why don't everyone get infected quickly? & so many more.

Among the cast members Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings series) is probably the only known face here & he himself barely makes it through this. On the whole "Cabin Fever: Patient Zero" is not a groundbreaking movie in any sense, nor is it one that really brings anything new or anything that the "Cabin Fever" movie series just wouldn't be the same without.

It delivers the same over-the-top gore and claustrophobic suspense, as the first two films, but not nearly as much of the dark and witty humor; that made the original movie such a cult classic.