One of the great things about revisiting movies over the years is how your reaction changes as you change over time. It’s a nice way to chart your personal growth and see how your tastes have matured. Even when I’ve soured on a movie I once liked, I still find it useful to look back and see if I can track exactly what changed in me or my worldview that paved the way for a flip flop. Too often I assume that rewatches will reveal things I’ve overlooked or misunderstood and that the film will grow in my estimation. Call me an optimist.
I say all that because for over 20 years I’ve had fond memories of Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever. I still remember going to see it with friends on opening day and knowing nothing about it aside from the poster image. The mix of splatter and juvenile humor proved very potent to an 18 year-old me. I watched it a few more times throughout college and came away similarly amused each time. I didn’t watch it again until watching Lionsgate’s new Steelbook 4K release of the film. Prior to watching it now, I could still remember a lot of the film in great detail. Dr. Mambo? Pancakes kid? They may as well have been old friends to me. Now? I found myself reacting the way you do with an old friend you’ve long since fallen out of favor with.
Then, an unfunny thing happened. I watched Cabin Fever in near silence. Most of the jokes that I thought were silly and ribald came off as crassly immature. There are still plenty of juvenile movies that make me laugh, but I think the difference is that most of Cabin Fever’s humor is of the frat boy patter that relies mostly on insults, saying crude things, and generally being self-satisfied over anything that is genuinely clever and built to hold up over time. What does hold up is the film’s premise, which is grim and plays into the cynicism found in most of Roth’s films.
But, man, that premise is low-budget horror gold. A flesh-eating disease that spreads via the water supply and seals the fate of everyone who drinks it long before they even realize there’s a problem? It’s simple and it opens the door for all manner of havoc. Pair it with a quartet of self-absorbed college students on a weeklong trip to a cabin in the woods and, baby, you’ve got a stew going. The students here are Paul (Rider Strong) and Karen (Jordan Ladd) as the shy will-they-won’t-they friends, Jeff (Joey Kern) and Marcy (Cerina Vincent) as the horny as hell couple, and Bert (James DeBello) as the goofy squirrel-shooting, Snickers-stealing fifth wheel. They’re all assholes, in their own way, but it’s a choice that makes it so I never particularly cared if they lived or died. These kids are cooked from the jump, but Roth and Randy Pearlstein’s script enjoys dangling survival in front of them before snuffing out the characters and their hope in short order. That’s not to say I’m against bleakness which is, afterall, a hallmark of the genre. It’s just that there’s a palpable sense that the film doesn’t care about these characters and wants us to root for their demise. It’s like the kid who burns ants with a magnifying glass. Maybe I’m getting soft, but where’s the fun in that?
That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy Cabin Fever anymore, because I did still find stuff to appreciate. What I came to appreciate most about the film is the scrappiness it took just to get it made. In an hourlong retrospective featurette, Scratching the Surface, Roth, alongside various cast members and producers, go pretty deep into the film’s production. Nuggets range from Roth’s intimidation at finishing Cabin Fever’s script, then being given Kevin Williamson’s Scream script to read by his agent to recollections from Rider Strong acting as the cast’s SAG rep and tense conversations when money issues cropped up to the film’s nerve-wracking launch at the Toronto International Film Festival. For anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of making a debut film, this is worth a watch. Within the film itself, there are still some bits that hold up. Chief among them being Deputy Winston (Giuseppe Andrews) and his dedication to upholding his solemn duty to party. The character is one note, but Andrews plays that note well. There’s also a great shot where someone gets hit in the face with a banjo or guitar and has a harmonica knocked into their throat. One of the film’s closing jokes with the go-getter kids using infected water for their lemonade stand is still a banger, even if it may be quickly offset by the punchline to the script’s n-word joke. All of that to say this, Cabin Fever’s high points are more fleeting and scattershot than I remembered, and that shouldn’t be a surprise for a first time filmmaker. You live and you learn, you know?
Cabin Fever is now available in 4K Steelbook courtesy of Lionsgate
