Cabin Fever

It's nice to see that Eli Roth's "Cabin Fever" (2002) still remains one of my favorite horror movies. It's dark, gruesome, and darkly hilarious. It has some of my all-time favorite horror movie moments, including this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMS9Rv3ksrU&feature=related

Bahaha! In the context of the movie (where some college kids go off to a cabin and get infected by a mysterious and horrible disease that picks them off one by one), it's just too perfect a set up, and the group cohesion falls apart as they're confronted with their own mortality. There are some very memorable images from it

Of course, it's not some sensitive Emo fable -- rather, it's a darkly funny exercise in mayhem, and nothing is sacred. It's got some stupid elements in it, it's got some funny-as-hell elements in it, and it's got some seriously horrific elements in it -- basically, a good time IF you enjoy horror movies.

I finally got it on DVD over the weekend, after not having seen it for years (and often touting "Harmonica Man" from it, which is, sadly, not properly shown on YouTube), and was pleased that I enjoyed it as much or more as I did the first times I saw it.

The asshole characters are extra assholish, and the plague falls on the just and unjust in roughly equal measure, coupled with rogue rednecks on the rampage (itself a bit of a wink-and-nod at the preconceptions of the characters).

It's fun, it's funny, and it's horrifying, and in a culture that runs from death and disease as much as ours does (I mean, who wouldn't want to run away from death and disease, right?) -- it hits a nice nerve, and bravo to Roth for tapping it (and the mean-spirited nature of the protagonists in it amuses me, too -- the selfishness of youth?)

Some horror fans I know hate this movie, but I think they're wrong -- it's all kinds of good, and you can't help but laugh while you're busy grimacing and squirming from it.