Cabin Fever (2016)

I'm going to join the parade. This fucking movie should never have seen the greenlight. I liked Eli Roth's Cabin Fever (2002). Saw it at the theater and thought its dark humor and grisly viscera was rather entertaining and unsettling. It had a rather gnarly cast, too. But this remake has no reason to exist. None at all. With a few alterations, the screenplay co-written by Roth follows his film somewhat closely. The skeleton is essentially the same. Young adults who grew up together take a trip to a cabin. The nearby reservoir is infected with a flesh-eating virus. As each drinks from the water, they are infected. And it is a nasty infection, too. The body bleeds, peels, and rots. There is the usual screaming, bickering, and dying. A dog is infected and it gets its fill. The pretty blond is the first to be infected. She is put in the shack near the cabin. One scene has the blond's potential boyfriend fucking his friend's girlfriend as she rots away in the shack! And sure enough there's a return to the leg-shaving scene which includes, this time, the female victim walking out of the cabin bleeding from oozing wounds buck naked, agonizing, collapsing, and facing the rabid dog soon to eat her! Another scene has the blond's potential boyfriend trying to decapitate her with a shovel...unsuccessful, and her still pleading to end her, he decides to set her on fire instead!!! Her screams reach from beyond the the burning shack as he watches in tears! One of the group has an assault weapon which has plenty of ammunition in its magazines. It comes in handy. Three locals decide they will kill any of the group still alive to halt any potential spread of infection...one of them has a kid who just decides to bite one of the group on the hand saying, "Pancakes". What the fuck?

At the beginning, the gang seem excited about a trip that will allow them to release some school fatigue. They are quite looking forward to swimming, drinking, and sex. Just the chance to unwind and be free from the pressures of the future is what they're after. Then comes the onslaught of the infection. It all goes to pot quickly.

The film peddles its wares to a horror audience simply fucking tired of the genre spewing such shit to them. Tired, plain tired. Some gruesome effects aside, this has nothing--just absolutely nothing--I think fans of the 2002 film would truly care about. You get some female nudity and a little bit of sex, but nothing that will leave you titillated.

Many horror fans hate Eli Roth. And this remake doesn't help to cull such vitriol held against him. When they call him a narcissist, an egomaniac, garbage like this remake fuels those sentiments exponentially. None of the characters--except maybe the poor blond girl--come off exactly heroic. Or sympathetic. Or even tolerable. And as they die, no one will care. And that is unfortunate.

If it was even funny, it'd help a little. But it isn't. It retains some of the original film's script but it leaves out its personality. I am the first to admit that I liked Roth's The Green Inferno. I did. But he needs to reign in his ego. Because these days, his films aren't doing so well. As for the movie poster, even it mimics The Evil Dead (2013)! And what was with the kid wearing the bunny mask???

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