Cabin Fever (2002) Review
Let’s get two things out of the way. First, the hugest difference between this film and Hostel 2 (besides the fact I actually saw the first part of) is that, once you watch the entire movie, Cabin Fever lacks overall misanthropy by comparison. Two, which is related to that same note on watching the entire movie, is that I don’t know if the ending is supposed to poke fun at twist endings from the 90s or deconstruct them, but it pulls it off strangely enough. With that said let’s delve into the film. Referring back to the 90s the film *does have a way of demonstrating its horror in an exploitative yet naturalistic quality. It's as though it was aiming to deconstruct the same 90s holdover it emanates sparingly, granted that this is done by fleshing out its characters to the point they’re realistically vulgar. Of course the film itself reminded me how, like most 2000s movies trying to bring back the 70s (such as Grindhouse, the works of Rob Zombie or Alexandre Aja, etc.) this chose Deliverance as its main inspiration, much like Wendigo (especially how there’s even a similar scene with a deer). For the most part it’s a standard yet effective horror movie which feels as though it may have felt more over-the-top around the time of its release. And given how the awkward situations (if not overall dark comedy) give it quite the sense of humor it has a sort of Evil Dead meets Contagion vibe. I mean it’s impossible to dislike this movie without sounding jealous, but my only criticism may be the pancakes scene (which just felt strangely avant-garde) if not Winston’s penultimate scene driving Paul. Otherwise this is pretty much a perfect case of less-is-more.