The saying goes that from little acorns, mighty oaks grow, but I guess no one was expecting anything mighty from director Ti West after the debacle that was Cabin Fever 2. Of course, now we know West best for not only crafting the X trilogy but also delivering us a slew of independent chillers that include The House Of The Devil, The Innkeepers and The Sacrament, but back in 2007, the director kept on board the slowly spreading Cabin Fever franchise to hopefully follow in Eli Roth’s bloody footsteps.
Now, for those of you who check IMDb or Letterboxd, you may be curious as to why I said Cabin Fever 2 was made in 2007 when it clearly states that 2009 was the year it loped into its DVD premiere – well, that because it took two damn years to release due to massive issues between West and the movie’s producers that saw the film held back (or quarantined, if you will), and reshot and edited without the director’s input to the point that he unsuccessfully lobbied to have his name removed from the final product.
That’s quite the tortured production story about a silly little gore comedy about a killer virus…
In the aftermath of the first Cabin Fever, we pick up when we left off with Rider Strong’s poor, infected Paul, still bobbing around in the local creek of a remote town who is just about to get a new batch of bottled water directly from the body of water that his slowly disintegrating mass is immersed in. However, with one last burst of strength, a bloated and deformed Paul manages to haul himself out of the creek, through the woods and to a main road – where he’s promptly obliterated by a passing school bus.
After a quick and hardly thorough search by party obsessed, pussy connoisseur Deputy Winston, Paul’s pulped body is simply explained away as a passing moose (despite his wristwatch and boot still being present at the scene) and the bus is allowed to proceed onward to school – which is where our story picks up proper.
With excitement hanging in the air about the upcoming prom, high school senior John is agonizing if he should ask his long-time crush, Cassie, to go after word has gotten out that she’s recently ditched her controlling boyfriend, Marc who isn’t best pleased. Meanwhile, John’s sleazy best friend, Alex, had convinced he’s scored himself a date after scoring himself a blowjob in the school bathrooms with a student who also works shifts down at the nearby strip club (*sigh* I know…), but when the prom ramps up, the fact that the punch has been made with that exact, contaminated water (among other things) means it’s certainly going to be a night to remember.
But with the flesh-eating disease spreading by the gulp and the heavily armed CCD about to charge in all guns blazing, the only one who seems to have figured it all out is Winston as he’s about to make a run for it.
Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever was something of a low rent breath of fresh air in a time when the horror genre was more obsessed with witty slashers and 70s remakes than being interested in forging any new ground, but the movie’s quirky sensibilities and morbid fascination with gooey body horror made it stand out despite the frenzied and exaggerated claims that Roth was the saviour of horror. Sure, some of it had dated – the regrettable instances of casual homophobia was fairly common in teen vernacular during the 2000s – but there was still a strong, almost cheeky feel to Roth’s approach to such squirm inducing material. However, the first film’s charm proves to be the exact thing that Cabin Fever 2 has a muscular immunity to and as a result, this deliberately tasteless gore comedy goes for the lowest common denominator every time.
Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Peter Jackson, Monty Python and even Troma both made their names by often making the most low brow things utterly charming; but speaking as someone who’ll pretty much laugh at anything, the film’s try-hard attitude just left me cold. I’ll guess we’ll never know exactly what tone Ti West was actually shooting for before all the producer-led-tinkering, but this version of Cabin Fever 2 seems to be entirety aimed at male teens whose biggest fear is contracting an STD thanks to the fact that they just can’t keep it in their pants. This means, instead of actual jokes, the movie’s biggest laughs come from extreme close ups of cold sores, welts, or squirting fluids that are guaranteed to score a repulsed cheer and not much else. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m certainly no snob when it comes to gratuitous gore, but it’s been a long time since I gazed upon such deliberately repulsive sights with such a disinterested gaze and you feel those responsible should have watched something like Class Of Nuke ‘Em High in order to give them more of a clue of what to do.
Also affecting proceedings is the fact that not a single character here is even remotely likable; and while you could say the same of the five brattish youths from the original, now we’ve got a whole fucking school of these sleazy, cruel, entitled, date rapey little bastards who I’m assuming are supposed to be caricatures, only they’re not funny. Even John – frustrated with his non-relationship with Cassie – blurs out an enraged speech that sounds like it’s come straight out of the incel’s guide book (“I would treat you like a queen!”) and it all just feels way too skeevy in a bad sort of way.
But as I stated before, I’m a sucker for some gossip out gore, but Cabin Fever 2 stumbles yet again but having the majority of its infected victims merely vomit blood when the original had that stand out leg shaving scene and not even the sight of Alex’s infected penis, dribbling pus like a leaky mustard bottle, manages to topple the weirdly sobering use of gore in Roth’s original.
The interference from the producers is impressively evident thanks to the fact that the quality of the actual cinematography takes a nose dive literally from shot to shot and we’re granted an overlong coda that seems unhealthily centred on following that student who works at the strip club as she spreads the infection to her patrons and it succeeds only in making the film even more unpalatable.
There’s some good stuff here. The occasional killer line (“Last time I checked kids were taking trench coats to school, not biological weapons!”) and memorable moment slips through, but it’s truly astonishing how a comedy movie about an extremely gruesome infection can been so oddly dull when the climatic prom scene could have potentially been as great as Carrie if you were to switch out telekinesis for a punch bowl with infected piss in it.
I was indeed sickened by Cabin Fever 2 – but only by how bland it was.
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