Cabin Fever

Alternate titles : None

Tagline : "Invisible. Silent. Deadly."

A group of youths rent a remote country cabin deep in the woods for a weekend of hunting, shooting, and partying. But things start to go awry when a local hobo stumbles in asking for help, who seems to be suffering from a flesh eating virus.

With their vehicle broken down and stranded miles from the nearest town, going for help isn't an option until they can get it fixed. Unfortunately, when members of the group start to show symptoms of the same virus, tempers become frayed and they start to turn on one another as they argue over the best way to handle the situation.

But even when one of them manages to reach civilisation, it seems the local townsfolk are more interested in confining and covering up what's happened as opposed to offering them assistance and so the surviving members are forced to try and find help outside the area, whilst fending off the murderous local redneck population.

This debut feature by Eli Roth , who went on to direct the "Hostel" films, proves to be quite good fun. Roth is clearly a fan of cult horror films as there's some obvious nods to old horror and exploitation titles in here.

Whilst this film may not be as grisly as his later "Hostel" movies, it still proves highly entertaining and would most definatelty recommend it.

Overall Marks : 6/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Alternate tag lines "Cabin Fever... catch it", "Terror... In the flesh".
• Eli Roth got the idea for the film while spending some time in Iceland. He was helping a friend clear an old barn and suffered a bad allergic reaction to the rotting hay that caused his face to badly blister.
• A couple of songs used in the film "Waitin for the Rain" and "Urban Snatch" were taken from the "Last House on the Left" soundtrack. An updated version of "Waitin for the Rain", which plays on the end credits, was performed for the film by David Hess's children.
• The sound mixer on the film, John Neff, coincidentally actually survived a flesh eating virus infection some years previous and claims the make up on the film is 100% accurate.
• Justin, the stoner who the group meet in the woods, was played by director Eli Roth.
• Sheriff Frumin was named after Eli Roth's film school professor Boris Frumin, who tutored him at New York University.
• Director Peter Jackson liked the film so much he halted production on "Lord of the Rings : Return of the King" at least 3 times to screen the film for his crew.
• The film was involved in a frantic bidding war between rival studios to secure distribution rights after it was screened at the Toronto film festival in 2002 and became the highest selling movie there that year. Ironically, virtually all the studios involved had initially rejected the film during the script stage, except for winning bidders "Lions Gate Films" who weren't actually around at that time.
• The film had the lowest budget, $1.5million, and returned the highest gross, $22million, of any of Lions Gates films for 2003. The rights to the film were purchased for an undisclosed 7 figure sum, which also made it the most money Lions Gate have ever paid out for a film.

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