Cabin Fever | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Eli Roth |
Written by |
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Story by | Eli Roth |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Scott Kevan |
Edited by | Ryan Folsey |
Music by | Nathan Barr |
Production companies |
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Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 94 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1.5 million [1] |
Box office | $30.6 million [1] |
Cabin Fever is a 2002 American horror comedy film [2] co-written and directed by Eli Roth (in his directorial debut) and starring Rider Strong, Jordan Ladd, James DeBello, Cerina Vincent, Joey Kern, and Giuseppe Andrews. Inspired by a real-life experience where Roth developed a skin infection during a trip to Iceland, the story follows a group of college graduates who rent a cabin in the woods and fall victim to a flesh-eating disease.
Henry, a hermit walking in the woods, encounters his dog, dead from a blood infection, and becomes infected himself from contact with his dog's blood. Meanwhile, college students Jeff, Marcy, Paul, Karen, and Bert take a vacation to a remote cabin to celebrate October break. Bert leaves to hunt squirrels but accidentally shoots and further wounds the now disfigured and bloody Henry. Despite Henry's pleas for aid, Bert flees and remains silent about the incident.
The students gather around a campfire that night, where they are joined by a friendly drifter named Grimm and his pet dog, Dr. Mambo. When it rains, Grimm leaves with his dog to pack up his belongings. While the friends wait for Grimm, Henry returns, begging for help. When Bert shuts the door on the sick hermit, he tries stealing the group's car while vomiting blood. When Henry approaches Marcy and Karen, Paul accidentally sets him on fire. While seeking help the next day, Jeff and Bert encounter a butcher but leave after learning that she is Henry's cousin. Paul receives assistance from police Deputy Winston, who promises to send up a tow truck. Paul tries comforting Karen, who is upset over the killing of Henry. After calming her down, Paul attempts to have sex with her; as he reaches between her legs, he discovers a bloody, infected wound on her thigh. The group isolates her in a shed.
After fixing the truck, Bert coughs up blood but does not tell the others to prevent a panic. Bert drives off after Paul and Jeff discover that he has caught the disease. Jeff takes the remaining beer and leaves, terrified of becoming infected. Bert seeks help at a convenience store but angers the owner after his son, Dennis, bites him. Bert flees, chased by Dennis's father and two friends. At the cabin, Marcy worries that they will all contract the disease. Paul comforts her, and they impulsively have sex. Soon after, he leaves the cabin to find Jeff, while Marcy takes a bath, crying. As she shaves her legs, the flesh begins to peel off and she runs outside in a panic, where she is eaten alive by Dr. Mambo.
Paul discovers Henry's body floating in the reservoir, and realizes that the infection is spreading through the water supply. Returning to the cabin, Paul finds Marcy's remains and Dr. Mambo feeding on Karen. After killing Dr. Mambo with Bert's gun, he bludgeons Karen with a shovel out of mercy. A dying Bert returns to the cabin pursued by Dennis's father and his two companions. The posse kills Bert, and Paul kills all three of them. Paul looks for Jeff; he instead finds Grimm's corpse in a cave. Paul takes the convenience store's truck, and, while driving, discovers that he is infected before hitting a deer. He reunites with Deputy Winston, who is partying with underage drinkers. Paul requests a ride to the hospital, but before the group departs, Winston is ordered to kill on sight several infected people on a killing spree.
Paul attacks but does not kill Winston. He runs towards the busy street, attempting to hitch a ride however he falls unconscious. A passing vehicle does stop to pick him up and drops him off at a hospital. The doctors unknowingly request him to be transported to another medical facility, by Deputy Winston.
Jeff, who has been hiding out and drinking in the woods, returns to the cabin the next day. Initially crying after seeing the remains of his friends, he becomes ecstatic upon realizing that he is the only survivor. As he raises his arms in victory, he is killed by local police, and his body burned with the remains of Bert and Karen. The sheriff asks Winston if he took care of Paul.
A boy and a girl get water from the lake for their lemonade stand, not realizing that a barely alive Paul is in the lake and the water is now contaminated. The sheriff and his deputies stop by the convenience store, owned by the children's grandfather, where they buy glasses of lemonade, tainted by the contaminated water.
Eli Roth co-wrote Cabin Fever with friend and former NYU roommate Randy Pearlstein in 1995 while Roth was working as a production assistant for Howard Stern's Private Parts . [4] Roth was inspired to write the script after getting an intense skin infection after working on a farm in Iceland. [5] Early attempts to sell the script were unsuccessful because studios felt that the horror genre had become unprofitable. [6] In 1996, the film Scream was released to great success, leading studios to once again become interested in horror properties. Roth still could not sell his script, as studios told him that it should be more like Scream. [6] Many potential financiers also found the film's content to be unsettling, including not only the gore but also the use of the racial slur "nigger" early in the film.
Various elements of the script were inspired by Roth's favorite horror films, including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), The Last House on the Left (1972), and The Evil Dead (1981). [7] David Lynch, whom Roth had worked under during the early stages of his career, had signed on to executive produce the film. [8] [5] However, Lynch is not credited in the final product.
The auditions for the character of Marcy had been scheduled to take place on September 11, 2001. [6] The scene the producers had chosen for the auditioning actresses was the build-up to Marcy's sex scene with Paul. In the scene, Marcy is convinced that all the students are doomed and despite Paul's reassurances, she describes their situation as "like being on a plane, when you know it's gonna crash. Everybody around you is screaming 'We're Going Down! We're Going Down!' and all you want to do is grab the person next to you and fuck them, because you know you're going to be dead soon, anyway." Eli Roth and the producers tried to cancel the Marcy auditions, but the general chaos caused by the attacks made it impossible for them to reach many of the actresses who were scheduled to try out for the role.[ citation needed ] In October 2001, Jordan Ladd and James DeBello entered negotiations to join the film. Michael Rosenbaum was set to star in the film, but would later vacate the project. [8]
Filming on Cabin Fever began in late 2001 and lasted 24 days, [9] [10] on location in North Carolina. [11] Production was stalled after one day of filming due to an anthrax scare. [12] According to Roth, filming was shut down a second time due to a union dispute. [13] Cabin scenes were filmed at Catawba cabin, an isolated spot at Raven Knob Scout Reservation, near Mt. Airy, NC. [14] Roth originally wanted Cerina Vincent to show her naked buttocks during her sex scene with Rider Strong. Vincent, who had previously played a nude foreign exchange student in Not Another Teen Movie (2001), was afraid that exposing too much of herself would lead to being typecast as a nudity actress and vehemently refused to bare her buttocks.[ citation needed ] At the peak of this conflict between the two, Vincent told Roth that if he wanted the shot so badly, he would need to re-cast the role with another actress. But they managed to reach a compromise, in which Vincent showed one inch of her buttocks on camera before Roth measured it for it to be precise. Bedsheets were then taped to her backside at the designated level and the scene was filmed. [15]
Composer Angelo Badalamenti agreed to compose some musical themes for the film out of enthusiasm for the material. However, the bulk of the film's score was composed by Nathan Barr. Some of the music selected for the film was deliberately chosen by Roth for their connection to other horror films; in the opening scene for example, while the main characters are driving to the cabin, "The Road Leads to Nowhere", a song written and recorded for The Last House on the Left (1972), is playing on the radio. [16]
The film premiered at the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2002 and was the festival's closing feature film. [17] [9] After a successful run at TIFF, the distribution rights to the film was sold to Lionsgate for $3.5 million. [9] Cabin Fever was released in the United States on September 12, 2003; it landed at No. 3 during its opening weekend, grossing $8.3 million on 2,087 theaters (an average of $4,137 per screen). [18] The film ended its theatrical run with a gross of $21.2 million in the U.S. and Canada and $30.6 million worldwide, [1] making it the highest-grossing film released by Lionsgate of that year. [18]
Cabin Fever was released on VHS and DVD in March 2004, which includes audio commentary tracks with director Eli Roth and the main cast as well as a featurette entitled "Beneath the Skin", which provides a behind the scenes look on the film. [19] The Blu-ray was released in February 2010, featuring Roth's edited version of the film that was screened at TIFF. [20] The Blu-ray was created from the film's original camera negative overseen by Roth, and includes a brand-new audio commentary with Roth and the main cast as well as a gallery of rare behind the scenes photos. [9]
Uproxx reported that Cabin Fever drew "better-than-average" reviews. [21] Some critics complimented the performances from the leads as "solid" [22] [23] while others judged them merely "adequate". [11] Their characters, however, were met with negative reactions: IGN and the Los Angeles Times' Manohla Dargis described them, respectively, as stereotypical [10] and "monumentally irritating". [24] Furthermore, IGN and Dargis criticized the film's lack of scares, delivering more jokes and gore. [10] [24] Stephen Holden of The New York Times and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone disagreed; Holden said Cabin Fever "finds an unusually potent blend of dread, gore and gallows humor", [23] and Travers called it "a blast of good gory fun that just won't quit". [25] Kim Newman in Empire and Maitland McDonagh in TV Guide awarded Cabin Fever three stars out of five. [22] [26]
Reviewers observed the film's homage to low-budget horror and thriller films, including Night of the Living Dead , Deliverance , The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , The Evil Dead and its sequel Evil Dead II, and The Blair Witch Project . [10] [24] [27] IGN said Cabin Fever "struggles valiantly to be both a worthy addition and simultaneous homage to these genres ... becoming instead a passably enjoyable slab of schlock", criticizing its failure to reinvent the films that inspired Roth's. [10] Conversely, Newman said: "There's a fine line between homage and simply stealing, but writer-director Eli Roth mostly manages the former". [26] Stephen Hunter in The Washington Post said Cabin Fever compared poorly to The Evil Dead and The Blair Witch Project, describing it as "a loud, derivative grade-Z horror film of no particular distinction". [28] McDonagh said Cabin Fever was "more Straw Dogs than Night of the Living Dead", citing its theme of "degeneration of relationships under pressure". [22]
Some critics said Cabin Fever suffered from genre and tone inconsistencies, [11] [29] with Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times comparing the flaw to "kids on those arcade games where the target lights up and you have to stomp on it". [30] Ebert was critical that the film alternates between horror and "weird humor", getting nowhere; he said it "could develop its plague story in a serious way, like a George Romero picture or 28 Days Later ". [30] Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly said, "Cabin Fever is what 28 Days Later would have looked like had it been made without style, subtlety, grunge-of-night video photography, or fashionable apocalyptic pretensions." [31] Ebert gave Cabin Fever one-and-a-half stars out of four, [30] and Gleiberman said it was "a big, dumb, crude, noisy, goose-the-audience bash and proud of it". [31]
The review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 62% based on 140 reviews, with an average rating of 5.92/10. The website's consensus reads, "More gory than scary, Cabin Fever is satisfied with paying homage to genre conventions rather than reinventing them." [32] On Metacritic, the film earned "mixed or average reviews," with a weighted average of 56 out of 100 based on 31 reviews. [33] Peter Jackson, the director of The Lord of the Rings film series, was a notable fan of Cabin Fever. Having seen the film from a print sent to him, Jackson suspended production on The Return of the King twice in his native New Zealand to have it screened to his cast and crew members. [34] He complimented the film as "unrelenting, gruesomely funny bloodbath". [35] Quentin Tarantino also expressed his admiration for Cabin Fever, calling Roth "the future of horror". [34]
Roth revealed in a 2010 interview that he had written a treatment for the sequel to Cabin Fever as part of Lionsgate's distribution deal, pitching it as "a Song of the South horror movie filled with corpses and sex." [36] Since Lionsgate was unwilling to produce his idea, Roth entrusted Ti West to direct the sequel entirely from West's own version. [36] Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever was released in 2009.
A prequel to the two previous films, Cabin Fever: Patient Zero , was directed by Kaare Andrews in 2014. [37] A remake of Cabin Fever was subsequently announced that same year, with Roth staying on as executive producer. Travis Zariwny directed the remake using Cabin Fever's original screenplay co-written by Roth. [38] Despite being panned by critics upon its 2014 release, with critics calling it "pointless" and derivative, [39] [40] Roth said he was genuinely happy with the remake. [41]
Eli Raphael Roth is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. As a director and producer, he is most closely associated with the horror genre, namely splatter films, having directed the films Cabin Fever (2002) and Hostel (2005).
Cerina Vincent is an American actress. She had her breakthrough role starring as Maya in the television series Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, followed by a part in the comedy film Not Another Teen Movie, before going on to star in the horror film Cabin Fever, which established her as a "scream queen" and led to further roles in horror movies. More recently, she appeared as Suzy Diaz in the Disney Channel series Stuck in the Middle. She has also written three books with Jodi Lipper, wrote a regular column for The Huffington Post, and co-hosts the podcast Raising Amazing with Dr. Joel Gator.
Hostel is a 2005 horror thriller film written and directed by Eli Roth. It stars Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eyþór Guðjónsson, and Barbara Nedeljáková. It was produced by Mike Fleiss, Roth, and Chris Briggs, and executive produced by Boaz Yakin, Scott Spiegel, and Quentin Tarantino. The film follows a group of American tourists, as they end up in Slovakia where they are eventually taken one-by-one by an organization that allows people to torture and kill others.
Jordan Ladd is an American actress. The daughter of actress Cheryl Ladd and producer David Ladd, she initially worked with her mother in several made-for-television films, before making her big screen debut at 19, in the vampire film Embrace of the Vampire (1994). She subsequently appeared in the drama Nowhere (1997) and the comedy Never Been Kissed (1999). Ladd became known as a scream queen, having appeared in several successful horror films, including Cabin Fever (2002), Club Dread (2004), Death Proof (2007), and Grace (2009). Ladd is also known for work with director David Lynch appearing in his films Darkened Room (2002) and Inland Empire (2006).
Hostel: Part II is a 2007 American horror film written and directed by Eli Roth, serving as a sequel to Hostel (2005). It is the second installment in the Hostel film series. The film stars Lauren German, Roger Bart, Heather Matarazzo, Bijou Phillips and Richard Burgi, while Jay Hernandez briefly reprises his role from the first film. It was produced by Mike Fleiss, Roth, and Chris Briggs, with Boaz Yakin, Scott Spiegel, and Quentin Tarantino serving as executive producers. The plot follows three American female art students in Rome who are directed to a Slovak village where they are eventually kidnapped and taken to a facility in which rich clients pay to torture and kill other people.
Return to House on Haunted Hill is a 2007 American horror film and the sequel to the 1999 film House on Haunted Hill. Directed by Víctor Garcia and written by William Massa, the film stars Amanda Righetti, Tom Riley, Cerina Vincent and Erik Palladino. The film follows Ariel Wolfe — younger sister of Sara Wolfe, a character from the previous film — being forced by a group of people to search for a mysterious idol hidden inside an abandoned and haunted psychiatric asylum.
2001 Maniacs is a 2005 American comedy horror film directed by Tim Sullivan and starring Robert Englund, Lin Shaye, Jay Gillespie, Dylan Edrington, and Matthew Carey. It is a remake of the 1964 film Two Thousand Maniacs! written and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. The film is distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment. It was filmed in Westville, Georgia.
Abominable is a 2006 American monster film, directed and written by Ryan Schifrin. Starring Matt McCoy, Jeffrey Combs, Lance Henriksen, Rex Linn, Dee Wallace, Phil Morris, Paul Gleason and Haley Joel. The film follows paraplegic widower Preston Rogers (McCoy) as he moves back into the remote cabin where he and his now-deceased wife once lived. Preston quickly realizes that a sadistic Sasquatch is stalking the woods around the cabin, but nobody believes him.
Cabin fever is restlessness from being in a confined area.
Gage Golightly is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Hayley Steele in the Nickelodeon series The Troop, Erica Reyes in the MTV series Teen Wolf, and Karen in the Amazon Studios series Red Oaks.
Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever is a 2009 American comedy horror film directed by Ti West and stars Noah Segan, Rusty Kelley, Alexi Wasser, Marc Senter, Rider Strong and Giuseppe Andrews. It is a sequel to the 2002 film Cabin Fever and the second installment in the Cabin Fever franchise. The film is about a high school prom that descends into chaos when a deadly flesh-eating bacteria spreads via a popular brand of bottled water.
Paul Solet is an American film director, film producer, writer and actor.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is a 2010 black comedy horror film directed by Eli Craig and written by Craig and Morgan Jurgenson. It stars Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden, Brandon Jay McLaren, Jesse Moss, and Chelan Simmons. Labine and Tudyk play a pair of well-meaning hillbillies who are mistaken for killers by a group of clueless college students. The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and received a limited release in the United States.
Cabin Fever: Patient Zero is a 2014 American science fiction horror film directed by Kaare Andrews and written by Jake Wade Wall; it serves as a prequel to, and the third installment of the Cabin Fever franchise. Starring Ryan Donowho, Brando Eaton, Jillian Murray, Mitch Ryan, Lydia Hearst and Sean Astin; the plot centers around a bachelor party on an isolated island, which inadvertently releases the disease from the previous two installments.
Knock Knock is a 2015 thriller film directed by Eli Roth, who also co-wrote the script with Guillermo Amoedo and Nicolás López. The film stars Keanu Reeves, Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas. The film was released on October 9, 2015, by Lionsgate Premiere. Knock Knock is a remake of Death Game, which was directed by Peter S. Traynor and starred Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp. All three individuals had a hand in the production of Knock Knock, while Camp also had a cameo in the newer film.
Matthew Quincy Daddario is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Alec Lightwood in Shadowhunters.
Cabin Fever is a 2016 American horror film directed by Travis Zariwny and written by Eli Roth and Randy Pearlstein as a remake of Roth's 2002 film of the same name and the fourth installment in the Cabin Fever franchise. The film stars Samuel Davis, Gage Golightly, Matthew Daddario, Nadine Crocker, and Dustin Ingram. The film was released on February 12, 2016, by IFC Midnight. The film was universally panned by critics and underperformed at the box office.
Dustin Kyle Ingram is an American actor and musician. He is best known for his role as Bert in the 2016 remake of Cabin Fever, as Duane Ogilvy in Nickelodeon's Unfabulous, and as Agent Petey in HBO's Watchmen.
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Cabin Fever is a series of American comedy horror films, including the original theatrical release, two straight-to-home media releases with a sequel and a prequel that both received limited theatrical releases, and one theatrical remake. Created by Eli Roth, the plot centers around groups of people who contract an extremely deadly flesh-eating disease, and their attempts to survive its symptoms.