Cabin Fever Review:

One word for Cabin Fever is disturbing, another is gruesome. Director Eli Roth wanted to shock his audience and I can say he definitely achieved this. Cabin Fever involves five young friends who have just finished their finals; Paul, Karen, Bert, Jeff and Marcy . They want to celebrate so decide to go to a cabin deep in the woods to party, drink and have sex. Sounds good, huh? Well, things start going wrong for the group pretty much as soon as they arrive at the cabin.

One of the characters, Bert, a rather silly sod, goes out into the woods to shoot squirrels...as you do! Instead he accidentally shoots a man, who is already very ill and covered in blood. Bert tells him that he will get some help but as soon as he gets to the cabin he doesn't tell anyone what happened. Later the man turns up at their cabin and this starts the whole terror in the film, as he spreads his disease. One by one the kids catch the disease and the rest of the film shows us how they all react; in panic.

This film has some great characters and as soon as the flick starts, it begins to develop the characters in an interesting way. Jordan Ladd plays Karen very well. She is such a sweet, innocent character who actually becomes the first one to catch the illness. We grow to feel sympathy for her as her friends turn against her.

Karen and Paul (her friend who has a big crush on Karen) are the only nice characters in the whole film. Jeff is so stupid. He abandons all his friends and his girlfriend, Marcy without a thought as soon as he knows they have a disease. Nasty man.

Also, Deputy Winston (played by the brilliant Giuseppe Andrews) shines as the rather strange cop who is only interested in one thing: partying. He hardly even notices that the gangs car has been smashed up and has blood all over it. There are some particularly horrible and gruesome scenes in this film which really make you grimance. You have to get ready to shut your eyes when Paul and Karen are in bed and they find out she's ill. And when Marcy is in the bath. Yuck!! I could not watch these scenes the second time I saw this film. So I'm just warning you.

Overall Cabin Fever builds up the characters and the tension incredibly well. You feel sympathy for some of the characters as there is no way they will find out how the disease spreads. And we just have to sit and wait, as we know that they are doomed. This film is a lot more shocking and cringe worthy than it is scary. But it is definitely worth the money to rent or buy. You have to see it as it's very original and will get a reaction out of the viewer.