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Old 14th April 2017, 12:56 PM
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Cabin Fever (2016)

Eli Roth's debut feature Cabin Fever, as with all Roth's work, divides people. I really enjoyed it as it brought a stale genre back to life and was the first film in a new wave of reasonably sized budget horror films from new talent such as Roth, Rob Zombie and Adam Green and gave the horror genre the kick up the backside it needed.

It has to be asked though. Did Cabin Fever warrant, need or deserve a remake? In my opinion the answer was no. However some, including writer/producer Roth felt it did.

On watching you soon realize it is more or less the same film with a few alterations. There is still the mad as a hatter cop knocking about, although this time a woman, the set pieces are all there from the shaving of legs to the locking victims in the barn, and yet it works... because in my opinion the original film worked.

Whilst not a shot for shot remake ala Van Zant's Psycho ,this version from director Travis Z is so similar to the 2002 original, yet lacking something. It's as if Roth's original was cloned but a small bug got into the process making it not quite as good. None of the actors here can match Jordan Ladd's heroine nor Cerina Vincent's sexy sleaze and the effects again don't quite have that same ouch factor, some such as the aforementioned shaving sequence don't anyway.

Whereas remakes usually differ from the original film, Cabin Fever doesn't veer dramatically off course at any point so whilst i wasn't sure 100% what was coming next i always had that sense of deja-vu as it played out.

Cabin Fever is okay as a one watch film, or indeed if you've never seen the original. It certanly won't convert any Roth haters, but it might offend Roth fans. Unnecessary but still watchable.

I realize i've been a tad contradictory in my review but somehow it sums the film up.
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