Cabin Fever (2002)Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009)
Oh where do I begin?
I get nervous when movies are described as comedy/horror. To me, horror movies are funny enough, they don't need any help, especially in the way of forced jokes, visual humor or other gimmick. And make the title fit the story please. Although the people are technically staying in a cabin, there is no 'fever' - have no idea how they came up with this title. And the second title? Even worse - no cabin, no fever, no spring.
Cabin Fever has the basic straight-from-the-can premise of getting a bunch of young people together up in the woods and kill 'em off. The difference here is they don't die by some deranged killer with a lame backstory, instead it's a flesh eating virus (not a zombie-making one unfortunately).
How watching a group of young people slowly (too slowly, you will find yourself fast forwarding a lot) dying from a flesh-eating bacteria can be considered a 'comedy' considering the extremely painful and horrid way they die I have no clue. They throw in a little comic relief: At the beginning of the film the kids stop in a small convenience store and ask the shop owner what the rifle hanging on the wall is for. He responds that it's for the... well it's the 'N' word.
Why is that funny? You don't find out until the movie's end that the rifle has been restored for a black person who is his good friend, calling him 'my N'. Not that funny. The only other is in the form of a backwater deputy who would rather party than do his job and essentially blows off the possibility that there could be a dangerous infection spreading around.
So as each person becomes infected (apparently it's in the water), their typically shallow friendships crumble and it's every man for himself. One guy takes all the beer (nice guy) and hides in a cave, convinced this will keep him safe. It does - until the end. Let's just say they ripped this ending from the original Night Of The Living Dead, except you don't feel a bit sorry for him.
So as each person becomes infected (apparently it's in the water), their typically shallow friendships crumble and it's every man for himself. One guy takes all the beer (nice guy) and hides in a cave, convinced this will keep him safe. It does - until the end. Let's just say they ripped this ending from the original Night Of The Living Dead, except you don't feel a bit sorry for him.
For some horrible reason, seven years later they decide to make a sequel - changing the location to a high school during prom. Sigh. There are a few sight gags (an infected person hit by a school bus is described as a 'moose' by... yup, the same stoner deputy from the first movie who manages to look just like he did in the first movie), a ticked off janitor pisses in the prom punch (he being infected means this spreads things rather quickly). Not that funny. Things are funnier in horror films when they don't try to be. Anywho, this waste of a movie shows the infected water being bottled (they do say tap water is just as pure or better than bottled anyway, guess they could be right) and sent in bulk to a high school where it is consumed by students and faculty. Then of course at prom, everyone starts to rot at once, just to make the gore consistent and having one location probably saved a lot of money. Does anyone survive? Do we really care? I know I didn't.
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