Reflection on Cabin Fever 2

When Eli Roth gave us his directorial debut “Cabin Fever” all the way back in 2002, I was very much in the camp that we were watching a future auteur of the horror genre being born (yes, I know I was wrong about that, but time will tell).  The movie was a fun, weird, and excessively gory and I am in no way ashamed to say that I enjoyed it very much.  Fast forward to today, and we have a sequel that was filled with controversy, studio interference, and finally the death blow: director disownment.  This usually spells nightmare for a film, and in the case of Cabin Fever 2, we are still left with a pretty good quality product.  However, it’s easy to tell that this is not the director’s final vision.

I’m not going to get into a whole rant about how a studio can ruin a director’s vision because in reality, there is nothing I can say about the subject that hasn’t already been said by the screwed filmmakers themselves.  What I want to point out in this editorial is what Cabin Fever 2 did right, and what it did wrong.

Before I even saw the film, I knew about the controversy and that I was going to be seeing the studio version of the film and not what director Ti West intended me to see.    Then again if you the viewer think that this is the first time this has happened, then you are out of your mind with naiveté.  It happens all the time with Indies all the way up to major studio films, all with the intention of making the film “better” (more marketable) in the eyes of the people that have the money.  Also, this isn’t always a bad thing, for example the director’s cut of Donnie Darko took all the mystery and the allure out of the film and turned it into a pile of crap.  But that is a whole other rant that is for another day.

So in Cabin Fever 2, the story continues almost immediately after the first film whereas we see the small town slowly gets contaminated with the horrible skin eating, blood vomiting virus that populated the first movie.  The bottled water truck that we saw leaving the station at the end of the first film gets delivered via a cartoon opening credits sequence to a local high school where the prom is going to happen that very night. About 20 minutes into the film, I realized that yes there had been a few gross out moments already, but it’s so blatantly obvious that the filmmaker is trying to solidify his characters in the film before he puts them through hell.  The recent trend is of course, the exact opposite where as we have cardboard cutouts of stereotypes that you are supposed to identify with get dispatched as quickly and as gruesomely as possible.  But in Cabin Fever 2, we don’t see that.

When we meet our two main characters John (Noah Segan) and Alex (Rusty Kelly), we follow them down the halls of their High School for a good five minutes of small interactions with other students and a lengthy conversation back and forth about life, prom, and various girls in their high school.  In this scene, we learn a lot about our main characters including their status in the high school, their sordid love affairs, their feelings about prom, and who they would like to bone.  This is something that you don’t see often enough in high school popcorn horror film, it’s called creating character depth.  That way you actually care when something bad happens to them.

After a few gory scenes in the beginning of the film, there is more and more character development and scenes of people starting to get affected by the virus.  More importantly to note is that the film moves on with purpose, building up tension, the gore, and the character’s relationships up until the prom where all hell breaks loose.  I won’t spoil anything for you from here on out during the climax because even in this version, it was done very well and if you liked the first Cabin Fever film or just generally crazy and gory messed up junk, then check this one out for yourself because it’s a good time.  What really bothered me though was the last 10 minutes of the film.

Don’t worry though; I’m not going to spoil anything for you because the last ten minutes of the film are so blatantly and obviously tacked on after Ti West left the film to the point where it is just painful to watch.  The film comes in at 87 minutes in this version, but as far as I’m concerned, it should have been over at about the 70 minute mark and anyone who watches the film knows that it’s over at that point.  After the story has been wrapped up for all intents and purposes, there is a strip club scene at the end that adds absolutely nothing to the story except length and some terrible jokes.  It’s more blatant here than anywhere else in the film that this isn’t what Ti West wanted for us to see.

I have never seen Ti West’s version of Cabin Fever 2, so I really don’t have a basis of comparison.  But from what I saw in the film, I saw a piece of art that in spots proved that there was a coherent, cohesive, and exciting story that was not brought up to its full potential.  Sure there are some great moments in the film, but overall, this cut wasn’t great.  It’s wasn’t bad by any means but it appeared to be capable of so much more.  I hope that someday we will get to see Ti West’s original vision completely intact the way that it was meant to be seen.  I guarantee that would put a lasting cult stamp on this one that will remain for a long time.  In its current DVD version however, that infamous cult status is just not there.