Cabin Fever
Review by Clint Morris
 Horror seems to be back with
a vengeance this year. Gone are the endless teen scarefests and spoofs,
and in their place, the return of those macabre, shriek-worthy
frightfests that made the 70's and early 80's such defining eras for
the genre.
And who's to thank? One man that definitely
seems to be getting a good wrap is Eli Roth, writer/director of one of
the year's most original, most entertaining splatter flicks, Cabin
Fever.
A bloody, scary, no holds barred gorefest to
say the least, Cabin Fever is probably the best the
horror genre has seen recently.
It's witty, it's fresh…and mostly it's loyal
to the genre that encouraged the man behind it to make his own film.
Five young people are headed for a holiday
in a bleak wood cabin for a couple of nights. There's the horny twosome
(Cerina Vincent and Joey Kern); the sickly sweet couple that have
puppy-dog eyes for each other (Rider Strong and Jordan Ladd); and of
course, the inane, 'kill him off quick - he's annoying' Jock (James
DeBello).
If you know your horror movies - you will
also know that heading into the woods with no one else around, except
for a couple of loony shopkeeper's ten minutes away, is a bad, bad
move.
In this case, an icky skin disease -
seemingly flowing from the local water - is about to crawl it's way
onto the calves of this clan, and one by one they'll croak it.
Roth's film could have been tired. It could
have been the same old thing, where a bunch of kids head into the
woods, have sex, get drunk and get chopped and chiseled by a
neighboring wacko.
Fortunately, he's steered away from that
route, instead serving up not only a story with a nice fresh element,
but something remarkably well written too. It doesn't let up for a
minute, it's absurd, it's choca-bloc with homage's to the classics, and
predominantly, it's horror of the superlative scale.
If we are to be swimming in horror movies
for the next year or two, let it be sensational pics like Cabin
Fever -- it'll knock your socks off.
4 out of 5
Cabin Fever
Australian release: Thursday December 4th
Cast: Rider Strong, Jordan Ladd, Joey Kern,
Cerina Vincent, James DeBello, Arie Verveen, Giuseppe Andrews.
Director: Eli Roth.
Website: Click here
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