Fear not - there's no shortage of blood and rotten flesh in Eli Roth's freshman feature, Cabin Fever. In fact, every other second yields an excretion of bodily fluids of some sort, it seems that what the horror flick lacks in substance, it makes up for with make-up and special effects.
From the sounds of it, Director Roth may be taking cues more from George Lucas than David Lynch, with whom he, in real life, spent six years researching films. Too bad talent does not rub off on understudies, as this film is as unsophisticated and artificial as any old Jean Claude Van Dam flick.
This film even features a cameo of a blond kung fu kid, who bears a slight resemblance to the former action hero.
Cabin Fever rotates around a group of friends who go to woods to get away from the stress of big city life only to encounter a flesh-eating virus. With any horror flick, we have our usual cast of stereotypical characters like Paul (Rider Strong) the anti-hero, Karen (Jordan Ladd) the innocent angel and Marcy (Cerina Vincent) the high maintenance princess.
Just when relationships are blooming and the cabin is rocking, a knock at the door changes their lives forever. A bloodied hermit appears in the middle of the night to ask for help - his face is practically rotting off of his bones, so instead of helping him, the group kill him.
Thus begins the cycle of bad karma and even worse skin conditions as the mysterious disease slowly spreads and turns friends against each other.
There's nothing wrong with a horror film with satire and wit, but even at its most intentionally funny scene, it was not funny. However, look for the frantic deer scene towards the end - that was absurd enough to actually be laugh-out-loud funny.
In his big screen debut, Strong has not evolved from the character he played in the TV show "Boy Meets World." His acting abilities and appearance are in arrested development.
The only compelling performance came from the petite body of Ladd (granddaughter of Alan Ladd), who punctuated her innocence with scenes of utter torment as she was locked away in the shed.
A true horror film fan, Roth puts too much of himself in the film. The dialogue reads like a dumb-down version of Tarantino's work and the humor is so blatant that the entire film feels contrived.
Horror faces should scout out theaters for 28 Days Later or even Jeepers Creepers 2 instead of wasting time and money on this piece of schlock.

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