CABIN FEVER

US, 2016, 99 minutes, Colour.
Gage Golightly, Matthew Daddario, Samuel Davis, Nadine Crocker, Dustin Ingram, Randy Schulman, George Griffith, Louise Linton, Laura Kenny.
Directed by Travis Z (Travis Zariwny).

Cabin Fever was originally a successful horror film of 2002, written and directed by Eli Roth who was emerging as a popular director of horror films, leading to Hostel. The film is about five young adults going into the country for a vacation, encountering strange experiences including a biting boy, a hermit who had been infected, hostile locals. Gradually, the visitors are also infected. Interestingly, there is no suggestion of anything supernatural about the plot.

Fans of the original were not impressed by this decision to remake the film, very much in the manner of the original, though some reversal of characters in shots and size of shots – reminiscent of Gus Van Sant and his decision to remake Psycho.

This is familiar material going back, at least, to the original Friday the 13th and imitated many times afterwards. While there is an eeire atmosphere, the puzzle of the boy biting, the hostility of the locals, the scene of the hermit discovering his infected dog and himself being infected, his confronting one of the young people in the woods, knocking on the door for help and his being rejected, shot at, eventually consumed by fire, the main characters themselves are rather unsympathetic. There is the pairing off, a couple of sex scenes for indulgence, some friendships, some hostilities, quite some bickering, difficulties in coping, and encounter with a rather strange deputy with her eye on one of the female victims, a lady slaughtering a hog and upset about the infection…

For those who have not seen the original, it probably passes as a horror entertainment, though very much at this stage in a familiar vein.