Cabin Fever
Directed by Eli Roth
- horror
The story
A group of five college graduates rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a horrifying flesh-eating virus, which attracts the unwanted attention of the homicidal locals.
What it’s like
Washed-out daylight on lake water and pine-dark interiors, with the camera often pushed in close on sweaty faces and bodies in cramped wood-paneled rooms. The look is gritty and saturated in places, with grainy handheld work and bursts of hard flash and cheap-looking gore that feels deliberately raw rather than polished. Sound leans on twangy acoustic guitar, rural ambience and sudden stingers that jolt the room. Vibe: sticky, sun-scorched dread with a streak of dark, dumb humour. It suits a late night with the lights off, or a horror-leaning group watch where the laughter and the screaming can trade places. Pacing is loose and escalating, with long stretches of sunburned hanging-out broken by repulsive, graphic body horror and brutal, frequent violence, including lethal illness and killings by suspicious locals. Emotional register is cynical and abrasive, and the friends' arcs slide from carefree and self-absorbed toward panicked, selfish collapse. Strongly gory and unpleasant; not for anyone wanting gentleness. For fans of splatter, gross-out horror and backwoods menace who don't mind a nasty, mean-spirited edge.
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