CABIN FEVER

Hello, and welcome to another edition of Philm Phreaks. This time around I’m looking at a movie called “Cabin Fever.” 

Now, this movie from 2002 is billed as Comedy Horror. I would say that it has a little trouble finding that balance. Some of the comedy parts are a little over the top – like the party hound deputy. Fortunately, though, they put a lot more of the focus on the horror aspects, and the comedy stuff takes a back seat a lot of the time. 

Now, I do need to address the use of the “n word.” It’s actually used at a couple of points in the film, and the usage does challenge expectations and point out that certain uses are not appropriate. That said, I still found it uncomfortable, but I really don’t like that word at all. You can throw “f bombs” around me all day, but that one sort of stops me in my tracks. I have mixed feelings about the ways it was used here. 

In terms of the horror, the very trope of a cabin in the woods evokes a lot of things. One of those is “The Evil Dead.” I would say that there are some definite nods to the Sam Raimi classic here. There are some “evil hillbilly” things at play at times, begging comparisons to things like “Deliverance” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” 

Overall, this is more body horror than anything else, centering around some horrific skin rotting disease. The film gets very bleak and quite gory. And, those are both compliments as far as I’m concerned. While I think that a lot of the humor fails to land, making the comedy part a bit of a stretch, the horrific stuff definitely hits. 

The movie is both repulsive and frightening a lot of the time. That said, a lot of the characters feel like stereotype cardboard cut outs. The character who is supposed to be the most likeable does a very creepy thing to his friend who is sleeping because she doesn’t feel well. It’s pretty cringey, actually. Those things make it a little hard to care as much as you probably should about the characters. 

Overall, I though the dark tone was really good. I wish they had avoided some of the sillier stuff after it hits to keep it at that level. Still, I suppose some comedic relief was necessary, even if it wasn’t great comedic relief. 

I know, this is an old movie, but it fell under my radar(Hard for me to think of any 21st century movie as "old"--Dr. M). Perhaps you missed it, too? All in all, I enjoyed it and can recommend it as an entertaining, if imperfect, film. Then again, how many perfect films can you think of?