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[Cabin Fever 2:Spring Fever]
Plot:In the bloodcurdling sequel to hit horror film "Cabin Fever", days after a killer virus consumed his friends, Paul emerges from a ditch by a river. Though his body has been ravaged by the virus, he is determined to survive and to warn others of the danger. However, a water bottling plant has already distributed contaminated water to the local high school. The school's students are excitedly preparing for the prom, unaware they're about to have a grisly date with death.
Cast:Alexi Wasser,
Larry Fessenden,
Giuseppe Andrews,
Rider Strong,
Noah Segan,
Rusty Kelley,
Marc Senter,
Marc Borchardt,
Judah Friedlander.
My Thoughts:Decent sequel.
Review:"Cabin Fever" was released way back in September of 2003, and did pretty well at the box office for an independent horror film. On a budget of $1,500,000...the film ended up grossing $21,156,247 by the end of it's theatrical run in November of 2003. Usually, with those kinds of numbers, a sequel would've been fast-tracked back in 2004. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. As Eli Roth flirted with the idea of doing a sequel, and eventually decided to move on from it. A sequel was always "in the works", but never materialized until six years later, in 2009.
And even then, there was trouble, as Ti West, who directed the sequel, had his version snatched out from under him by Lionsgate, and re-edited to the point where he declined to say it was "his movie"...any longer. So taking all of that into account when sitting down to watch this film, I decided to be as open-minded towards it as possible. In the end, the picture ended up being a decent sequel, but was kind of missing the charm and likeable ambiguousness the first film had.
"Cabin Fever 2" is taglined "Spring Fever" because the Down Home Water, seen being shipped out of town at the end of the first movie, ends up in another town upon which it infects that towns populous, right aorund the time for the school prom. Giuseppe Andrews returns as Winston, who is the lead investigator (if you wanna call him that) on the new strain of infection after a surviving character from "Cabin Fever" is splattered all across the road by a school bus. Winston sees a local in the diner come down with the same symptoms as Paul and his friends did, and he sets out to stop the infected water from reaching the next town.
But it's already too late, the new infection has begun! This films first problem is it follows main characters who are not as interesting as Paul and his friends were. These new characters are basically teeny-boppers, and they have the usual teeny-bopper cliches and worries that you see in today's mainstream horror films. You have the one guy who is too prideful to pursue the girl of his dreams, and you have his friend who knows how to score with chicks by basically pretending to be sensitive.
And prideful guys friend tries to get him to go after the girl, but the girl is with a guy who is an asshole, and the whole break down is similar to every teen comedy I've seen in my lifetime. Nice girl is with asshole guy because he's popular and rich and she's too dumb to have any respect for herself, and doesn't even notice the stereotypical nice guy who's madly in love with her. And then at some point, you know the two will finally be brought together by some sort of cataclysmic event (the new flesh-eating plague), but since it's a horror movie, you wonder if both will stay alive long enough to even explore their newfound relationship.
That's how predictable this film is and becomes. And the fact that the characters are all cliche, uninteresting, and one-dimensional...doesn't help. What does help carry this movie into any sort of positive area though, is Giuseppe as Winston. This is really deputy Winston's movie. He carries the film in every scene he is in, and brings the movies comical and slapstick elements to the forefront. When he's not around, you fail to care about any of the movies characters.
That wasn't the case in part one, mostly because Eli Roth was more in charge of creating the characters since he wrote and directed the movie. Therefore, he created better characters. That had their downfalls, but overall were tolerable to watch engage in this particular situation. These new characters though are extremely annoying, and kind of are fodder characters, waiting to die at the hands of the flesh-eating bacteria, or the "clean-up crew", that storms the town packing heat, once the infection reaches critical mass at the prom, and people start losing their skin, puking, etc.
The prom is really what you wait for in this movie. Because you know it's when and where all the gross, nasty, disgusting, bad and horrific shit will go down. And it actually manages to be so gross and horrific in some ways, that it saves what would otherwise be a failure of a sequel. Honestly, without the prom scene, which takes up pretty much all of the films third act...this movie would've been a disaster. But the prom offers up some nice dialogue, a few sad deaths, some twisted moments, and a lot of blood and gore.
Which in the end, manage to save a film which otherwise would only have one highlight, Deputy Winston. I do however question the films usage of cartoon intercuts to move the story along. I thought that worked for a film like "Dead and Breakfast", but only because they did it in a way where it made sense and worked within the context of the picture. It seemed like it was done ehre for budget reasons.
The ending of "Spring Fever" is also quite sloppy and leaves questions and the possibility of a third film, but it's all done in such an uncool and anti-climatic way, that it doesn't have the necessary effect needed to be as powerful as it should be. "Cabin Fever 2" is worth seeing once, especially if you're a fan of the first film. But be warned, beyond Giuseppe returning as Dep. Winston, and the bloody and gory third act prom, it offers up little to nothing new or exciting.
Positives:Giuseppe is even funnier this time around as the returning Deputy Winston, third act is really good with the graphicness of it all. A few funny shootings in the film, and the blood and gore are at high levels.
Negatives:Cliche and one-dimensional characters beyond Winston, too predictable in the turn-of-events area, and how many times can we stomach the guy-who-is-madly-in-love-with-the-hot-girl-who-is-dating-a-total-prick storyline in horror films? Give it a rest already!
Overall:Two out of four stars.
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