I’ve got the Fever
Cabin Fever (2016): 5 out of 10: Well, let’s start with the good news. The film is attractively shot by cinematographer Gavin Kelly and director Travis Z manages to not shake the camera.
Yep, that is about it. This is easily one of the most pointless remakes. Cabin Fever is only fifteen years old and isn’t exactly an unreachable classic. This film uses the same screenplay and despite getting rid of the racist old guy (which ironically is one scene that stands out as working in the first film.) It keeps all the rest of the quirky and plays it straight. For example, it keeps the party cop (gender-swapped) and the bitey kid who yells pancakes. Neither of which are as good as the originals. The original movie, as stated above, plays this material a little looser and funnier. What’s even worse for our Cabin Fever remakers is that The Cabin in the Woods had subsequently come out and The Cabin in the Woods apes the opening for Cabin Fever and does a great job deconstructing it.
The serious tone throughout does Cabin Fever no favors, and the acting is all over the place. Cerina Vincent played the girl shaving her legs in the original. She had a nice girl next door vibe, so to see her in a sex scene was one of those nice treats that horror films can have. Nadine Crocker, on the other hand, has a serious stripper next door vibe. So her sex scenes are more as if one paid the five-dollar cover charge and was hitting the free buffet. All the actors were wooden without a memorable performance. The rednecks looked like they escaped from Hee Haw 2000.
I am not against horror film remakes in principle. The new Friday the 13th missed the point but was at least entertaining and the Bloody Valentine remake was an improvement over the original. Who this movie is for is a complete mystery. Fans of the original will find this wanting, wooden, and pointless. People who hated the original will also hate this. As for those who were not around for the original? For God sakes, it’s from 2002 rent the BluRay.