Rhino's Review of Cabin Fever -- Rhinotainment

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This one time, these kids took a camping trip. They rented this cabin and brought a bunch of beer, had a lot of sex, and planned on totally wasting a whole weekend. But then one night, this guy comes out of the woods and he's, like, totally infected with some disease. It's like a flesh eating virus or something. They don't want to get infected so they set him on fire! Oh my God, this is so creepy! Then he stumbles through the woods, totally on fire and jumps into a lake to put out the fire. The guy's totally dead. But he's not in a river, he's, like, in a reservoir! So he has totally polluted the area and stuff. Then the kids start getting sick and their skin starts deterorating and it's like, soooo gross!!! Pass the bong!

Okay, enough of the high school gibberish. That's roughly the story, but here's a more intelligent rendering of it, if you will.

A hermit-like man is out hunting one day when he stumbles across his dog. The dog's not looking so hot. He rolls the dog over and finds that all of the dogs innards have rotted away. Blood sprays into the man's face and he is immediately infected with the disease that claimed the life of man's best friend. Rapidly, the disease takes hold and begins to rot away the flesh of the man. It also begins to dissolve his organs, causing him to vomit blood, Ken Shamrock style. There is no reversing the trend and soon he will be dead.

As mentioned, the five friends set up camp at their rented cabin. One of the friends, Bert, heads into the woods with a rifle. Bert's a burn-out, loose cannon type, who wants to get drunk and shoot squirrels, so that's what he sets out to do. Something moves in the brush, so he takes a shot. He ends up shooting the diseased hermit. Bert immediately realizes that the man is diseased and probably contagious, so he leaves in a hurry as to not inherit the disease.

Later, the friends are sitting around the campfire telling stories when the hermit stumbles upon their camp. Bert freaks out immediately, which frightens the other campers and builds tension between the diseased and the healthy. The man wants help, but obviously, he can't be touched. To drive him away, they end up setting the man ablaze and he bolts towards the woods, a human torch. Later, the body is found floating in said reservoir.

The weekend is ruined for the sinning campers, as they've killed a man in need. Karen, the lovely blonde camper, is overwhelmed with guilt. Paul, lovestricken admirer of Karen, comes to her with sympathy...and a glass of tap water. Karen is soon diseased and bleeding. The remaining campers quarantine her in a shed outside the cabin so that they don't catch what she's got. Their car is busted and covered in the bloody vomit of the dead hermit, conveniently enough, and the only neighbors in the area are unwilling to help them due to earlier antics by the group that led them to be seen as wiley outsiders.

The group, unknowing about the contaminated water, drink up, take baths, cook food with water in it, etc. Soon, their complexions leave a lot to be desired. Marcy, the token naked camper, discovers the dangers of shaving your legs when you have a flesh eating virus, much to her horrified dismay. Gory hinjinx ensue.

I enjoyed the film quite a bit, but then it took a strange turn towards the end. The movie's climax left me scratching my head and uttering "What the hell?" over and over again as I left the theater. You take a serious problem such as a flesh eating virus that is contaminating the water supply and tack on a slapstick comedy ending to it and you have puzzled your audience. It would be like Erin Brockovich ending with the guys from Jackass in jockstraps with T-bone steaks dangling from spiked codpieces jumping their skateboards over vats of cottage cheese...there's no reason to do that. Once the lights came up, people began looking at each other with the same look that I employed in this situation: one of pure befuddlement.

If you are into gore, gratuitous nudity and stupid endings, this is the film for you. I am into the former two for sure, so there was something to enjoy out of the film. But for the most part, I left with the wish that I had just rented the film or TIVO'd it when it hit cable. The gore was good, the script was a tad bit smarter than most horror films, but the ending left me floating in the limbo of disappointment. A film like this couldn't possibly have a happy ending and I realized that going in, but to end it the way they did was absurd.