Cabin Fever — Mini-Review

15 Sep, 2003 by John Hawkins

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I’ve been surprised by the number of excellent horror films that have come out of late. “House of Thousand Corpses, “28 Days,” & “Freddy Vs. Jason,” have all been top notch movies (you can see my reviews of each here). In fact, the only horror movie I’ve seen lately that wasn’t up to snuff was Jeepers Creepers 2 & I didn’t even bother to review that one.

Well last week-end, I caught Cabin Fever and believe it or not, it may have been the best of the lot. It was like a mix between “Evil Dead 2” & “Friends” with a dollop of “28 Days” thrown in for good measure.

The movie starts with five college students heading out to an isolated cabin for a vacation and believe it or not, the kids really reminded me of the cast from Friends. You have Rachael and Ross before they started dating, a slightly more angry and demented Joey, a more dapper Chandler — OK, he actually reminds more of Fred from Scooby-Doo — and a slutty Monica. All they were missing was a an easy Fibi who has a thing for conservative webmasters. But I guess you have to take what you get.

Things start to go horribly wrong when a man infected with some sort of plague, virus, alien spore, (Who knows? They never really explain it) shows up. Then people start getting sick, life starts getting weird, and the murder and virus victims start adding up faster than the bar tab at a Kennedy family party.

While this movie is a horror film, it’s a very “clever” horror film. In fact, the only movie I’ve seen recently that has as many twists, turns, shocks, and little surprises as “Cabin Fever” was “Signs,” another movie that I really enjoyed.

So if you’re looking for a top-notch horror film that even people who don’t normally like horror will enjoy, then I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend “Cabin Fever”. It’s a truly excellent film and it gets a thumbs way up…