And suddenly, as the lawmen drink their fill, a car of stereotypically hostile-looking blacks drive up. Claus again, asking the team of gunmen to take a sip of lemonade, which we know has been tainted by the very water that is responsible for the illness. But at the instant we believe the cracker cops are in some sort of conspiracy, we see Mr. And the final character - he who thinks he has escaped the wrath of the virus - will be shot to death at the moment of his apparent triumph. Another will waste away in a hospital bed before being taken out and killed by the locals. Then the resident dunderhead will get his head blown off by the local sheriff. A second hottie will shave off most of her leg in the tub before she is torn apart by a wild dog. A blond chick will be the first to get the disease, where she will slowly waste away before being bludgeoned by a large stick. The story is simple enough - a bunch of dippy young people travel to a cabin in the woods, where one by one they will die. But that’s the kind of film this is part allegory, part bloodbath, and just the right amount of silly confusion. Black people? In the mountains with a gang of yokels? Apparently the New World Order involves mass murder, only now black people have joined the ranks. Am I guilty of thinking too deeply about what amounts to a cross between Friday the 13th, 28 Days Later, and Deliverance? Perhaps, but all I know is that most of the characters are dead by the end, and the final shot is of a good old fashioned mountain-man jam session, complete with a creepy Santa Claus-like redneck and numerous black people who are not being lynched. Secondly, and in line with the Dubya-ization of America, our drinking water is becoming so polluted that flesh-eating bacteria will eventually kill us all. Bush’s America is evidence enough of that fact. One brief look at any corner of George W. The film is most effective when attending to its inevitable victims, and its misguided effort to break away from the isolation of the cabin results in the unfortunate loss of a palpable claustrophobia.There are two lessons that one can take from the deliriously goofy Cabin Fever, one of which is that hillbillies are destined to take over the world. The audience is often caught halfway between a scream and a laugh, largely due to a rather ungainly subplot involving some rather eccentric backwoods townsfolk. Unfortunately, Cabin Fever is a bit too self-conscious for its own good, oftentimes oscillating between homage and parody, though never quite settling comfortably into its own, borrowed skin. Add a dash of drunken teenagers and a pinch of T&A and you're halfway home already. Recalling the original Evil Dead in any number of ways, Roth's recipe for a successful homage is one-part forest, one-part confinement, one-part disease, and one-part crazy redneck rampage. And such is the way to best describe Eli Roth's highly-praised Cabin Fever.įrom that great and secret list, Roth has chosen seemingly at random, assembling a strange combination of horrific elements in this low-budget throwback to the grainy gore films of the 1970's. The limitless capacity of any one thing to destroy another.For centuries, storytellers have applied their trade in service to the scare, and for centuries, those that came after paid the greatest of all possible tributes: imitation. Proof, in a way, that our only binding tie is that which makes us afraid. A forever kind of thing, and as timeless as fear. It's an ancient thing, that list, that smudged list, drawn up by dreamers. I can imagine that list now, even now, all half-faded type on yellowing paper, the edges torn, the surface crumpled. Somewhere, I'm sure, there is a list, a long and laundry list of the things that make us tremble. Cabin Fever is most effective when attending to its inevitable victims, and its misguided effort to break away from the isolation of the cabin results in the unfortunate loss of a palpable claustrophobia.
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