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Baddie – Ebola scare.

Lesson – Horror origin stories are -hard-, you guys.

The first Cabin Fever, while not a horrendously scary movie in my opinion, goes down as having one of the creepiest scenes in it as far as I’m concerned. Shaving one’s legs and having your skin come off is possibly the most terrifying thing ever, particularly if you’re a teenage girl (which I was at the time of viewing). Naturally, this sequel (the third in the series) intrigued me. The theory of an origin movie is sound, but the departure from the format (teenage summer camp shenanigans) is disconcerting at best.

Two plots run concurrently. Sean Astin as Patient Zero, in a lab after an outbreak. Meanwhile, a bachelor party begins for a group of young men. Again, in theory, the plot is sound. Porter (Astin) has a natural immunity to the disease, so they experiment on him and test him and he goes a little…crazy. The lab team is small because that’s more manageable for a horror movie. The bachelor party sails to an abandoned island they were expressly told to stay away from, because horror movie.

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The exposition is your standard clumsy horror fare, with some third-world mysticism (Foreign people are so weird, you guys!), brought to you by the Dominican Republic. To it’s credit, the plot with the young adults is actually got some decent call back moments to to the summer camp feel, with adults acting like children and doing drugs and co-mingling sexy times. And, in regards to sentences I never thought I’d write – Cabin Fever manages to translate the horror of the leg-shaving scene (terrifying for a teenage girl) into a terrifying oral sex scene (terrifying for an adult woman). So. Uh. Well done, I guess?

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“Flesh eating bacteria is the WORST STD”

I would say that this movie is about 95% well produced. The film quality is solid, the shots are decent, the prosthetics are killer. The dialogue is terrible and the CGI additions are most unwelcome. Well, except one moment where physics takes a brilliant little vacation for a great horror moment of campy insanity. I’m okay with that.

At the end of the day, it’s a not-always-riveting horror movie with some dumb dialogue and some great prosthetics and comedic moments, so it probably wouldn’t hurt to do a viewing, or run a Cabin Fever marathon. I’m not suggesting you do it, but it isn’t a terrible idea if you enjoy getting the heebie jeebies.

Also, apparently Eli Roth is remaking the original Cabin Fever with the same script because why not it’s been a whole eight-ish years so whatever it’s fine don’t worry about it Mr. Roth has it under control god why are we doing this ugh.