Review

Danger After Dark:
“The little horror movie that could,” Cabin Fever premiered at the 2002 Toronto film festival with little advance fanfare, but went on to become the independent horror film success story of the year, sparking a now-legendary distributor bidding war that led to a successful wide theatrical release in 2003, making writer-director Eli Roth the new wunderkind of the genre (the man has been attached to more horror film projects this year than he will have time to direct for the rest of his life). Fortunately, the hype was not entirely unwarranted, as Cabin Fever remains a humorous, entertaining, and highly effective film in its own right, as well as an almost insanely meticulous homage to such beloved ’70s/’80s horror landmarks as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Evil Dead (Roth’s film features gleefully grisly gore effects, gratuitous nudity, and a simple storyline involving spoiled teens partying in a cabin in the woods and encountering threatening rural elements). The story involves five college friends who venture to the aforementioned cabin and encounter a nasty flesh-eating virus which divides the group’s loyalties, but the joy of Cabin Fever lies in watching the film continually outdo itself within the theatre of the grotesque. Eli Roth is obviously a hardcore horror film fan, but luckily, he's also a talented filmmaker who knows how to take his cherished influences and use them as raw source material for his own original (firmly tongue-in-cheek) interpretation of the indie ’70s horror aesthetic. As much as the film imitates the older genre classics with which Roth is so enamored, the director also pays homage to these films very knowingly and lovingly, adapting their plot devices and stylistic traits with both great care and imaginative wit.

TLA Guide Review:
Herein lay the horror movie equivalent of one of those K-Tel greatest hits albums — a gruesome, carcass-strewn compilation of signature moments from at least a dozen better pioneering cult flicks. A generic gaggle of sex-starved dweebs and debs camps out in a creepy cabin, one by one succumbing to a nasty flesh-eating virus spreading throughout the woods. The local country yokels, filmic descendents of the hillbillies from Deliverance, are convinced the libidinous campers are the source of the virus and thusly take appropriate, grisly action. Some racy sexual hijinx and an unexpected dash of zesty culture-baiting humor add some flavor to this otherwise bland, undercooked stew, though splatter-geeks will thrill to the conventional-vs.-CGI approach to rendering the abundant gore.

 -- Travis Crawford