I’m going to say that I’m not a fan of the original Cabin Fever. I’ve spoken before about my dislike for horror films needing to resort to massive amounts of gore to shock audiences rather than scare them and Cabin Fever is certainly one of those movies. You may certainly be closing your eyes while you are watching it, but not because you are afraid of what might happen, rather because you can’t stomach what is taking place on screen. Now, I don’t have a weak stomach, but even if gore doesn’t bother me, there was not much memorable about the original movie.
However as with all movies that made some profit at the end of the day, they get rebooted in the hope that studios can make even more money, regardless of what the quality of the movie is. And the trailer for the new reboot, written and produced by Eli Roth (who wrote and directed the original film) has been released and seems to offer pretty much, more of the same.
It’s a plot line that is almost exactly the same as the original and will probably appeal to teenagers, perverts and those not actually old enough to watch the movie (or I have completely lost touch with society), with the official synopsis of the film being:
Executive producer Eli Roth presents this reboot of his instant classic gorefest, which features all new characters and all new kills. This story is familiar: fresh out of college, a group of five friends retreat to a remote cabin in the woods for one last week of partying- only to become snacks for a gruesome, flesh-eating virus. What’s surprising are the ingenious new deaths, which offer a fresh spin on a horror-comedy milestone. With Gage Golightly (Teen Wolf) and Dustin Ingram (Paranormal Activity 3).
It’s unusual for a reboot to involve the same person who made the original, but it seems Roth is short on ideas at the moment and so is treading back into old, familiar territory to spark some revival from his glory days in the horror industry when films like Cabin Fever and Hostel were popular (I still don’t know why, perhaps has to do with those aforementioned teenagers).
To be fair, Roth has tried to branch out a little over the past few years, so perhaps I am being a little disingenuous, but his horrors have still struggled to gain my attention and this is just more of the same. This reboot is being directed by Travis Zariwny and the script is co-written with Randy Pearlstein. The film also stars Matthew Daddario, Nadine Crokcer and Samual Davis.
Cabin Fever debuts in the U.S. in limited release on February 12th and will also be released on Video-on-Demand at these dates. I don’t expect this one to make it to South African thatres, so if this is something that you may actually enjoy watching, you’ll have to wait for it on DVD or through On Demand as well.
Last Updated: February 2, 2016
