A Slight Chiller
In a word, Cabin Fever is weird. It’s not quite your usual teen horror – but then it’s not quite anything else either.
Five American teenagers, Jeff, Paul, Marcy, Karen and Bert, rent a cabin in the woods after graduation, and it looks like a typical week of beer and sex. Soon after they arrive however, a hermit comes out of the woods with his flesh falling off of his body, looking very messy indeed. Being teenagers, they do the obvious thing and set him on fire, trashing their car in the process. With no way out of the woods and a nasty looking disease out there, ‘cabin fever’ really sets in, and their friendship falls apart. Unfortunately, the man they set on fire chose to put himself out in the lake that also provides their water supply…guess what’s coming next. One by one they succumb to the disease, blood and bits of skin everywhere. The body count rises as they try to find a way out of the woods. Shootings, beatings, eatings, death by screwdriver, axe and spade are all there (along with one poor guy who has his own harmonica shoved down his throat.). Two are alive by the end of the ordeal, only to find themselves killed by the town policemen, of all people.
Needless to say, this is an extremely gory film. Those of a sensitive disposition will spend a lot of time hiding behind something, peeking out when the music sounds a bit calmer. (My own choice was a packet of Fizzy Strawberry Laces – although I still saw things that I really didn’t want to.) When I wasn’t hiding though, I was laughing. There is some funny dialogue, and in parts it attempts a pastiche of the genre, but it never quite has the confidence to do it.
Now for the bizarre bit. A kid called Dennis who bites people, and indulges in Matrix-style, slow-motion kung fu moves probably tops the list, along with a doctor with a rabbit head; both for no particular reason. It’s as if David Lynch popped by for a cup of tea and scribbled on the script when no one was looking. I couldn’t work out what the film was trying to do here. It’s as if, by putting in a few weird parts and a few bit-part characters with funny one-liners, but otherwise no point, the makers of the film were saying ‘Look! We’re different! Funny bits! In a horror film!’ Groundbreaking. In reality, this film is just a teen horror flick with some add-ons.
Go and see it if you really have nothing else to do. Although for a similar effect: invite four friends round, buy a few bottles of ketchup, and don’t stop till they’re empty.
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