Eli Roth in London promoting his $1.5 million debut feature Cabin Fever
Celebrating the end of their college days together Paul (Rider Strong) and his friends Karen (Jordan Ladd), Bert (James DeBello), Marcy (Cerina Vincent) and Jeff (Joey Kern) head off to stay in a cabin in the backwoods of Carolina. But soon after their arrival they have a nightmarish encounter with a strange and horribly disfigured man who wanders from the woods asking for their help. Things rapidly take another terrible turn for the worse when one of the kids becomes ill with a mysterious flesh eating disease. The remaining friends realise that in order to survive they must defend themselves not only against the sickening disease, but also against the weird local hicks, and even against each other. Eli Roth is in London to promote his $1.5 million debut feature Cabin Fever. The film is enjoying some success at the box-office and the young American director is particularly thrilled about the reception his film has received from fellow filmmakers. Roth remarks enthusiastically, "The thing I didn't expect and is truly overwhelming is the way my favourite directors, my heroes, my idols, have responded. David Lynch loved it, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino waited online to watch it at the LA Film Festival and then invited me to his house to watch movies. Richard Kelly, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven just sent me an email. My favourite directors who I have idolised, who are so in another universe, and now all of a sudden these people are inviting you to lunch and quoting your movie back to you."
Roth says: "I set out to make a film that would be a throwback to the late 70's and early 80's heyday of horror." He revisited many of his favourite films from the era when writing Cabin Fever: "Structurally, I sat down and I looked at my favourite directors and their career trajectories. Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson and David Lynch all started out making low-budget horror movies, groundbreaking films. And I said ok, so structurally, what am I gonna do? I looked at Evil Dead , John Carpenter's The Thing, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And I looked at what had made these films successful?" Despite his devotion to the horror genre and admiration for many of its exponents, Roth's analysis of 'what makes a successful film' is rather uninspiring: "How many characters were there? What were the relationship dynamics? At what point did they hit the general store? At what point did they arrive at their destination? At what point did the first person die? At Film School I learned how to dissect a movie and break it down structurally, so that's what I did. I looked at all my favourite films and broke them up in to the core structural elements, and I lined up al the scenes from all the movies in a row, and you don't just rip them off but you say 'ok, at this point in the script the character should arrive here.'"
Consequently Roth's debut is a watchable but lightweight take on very familiar horror material. He's got the stock group of friends, the remote cabin in the woods, the freakish neighbours, lots of blood, and there's even a big snarling hellhound. The film's brightest and most original moments are those featuring quirky minor characters played by unknowns. Best amongst these are the high-talking father Christmas-like old man who runs the general store, and the Deliverance -esque feral child who sits on the swing-bench outside and bites passers by. Upcoming actor Giuseppe Andrews as bizarre local law enforcement officer/underage party crasher, Deputy Winston, also gives a fantastic and very funny performance. Reflecting on his use of local actors from North Carolina, Roth enthuses: "It is so exciting discovering actors the world has never seen before, and hopefully we'll be seeing more of all of them." But the problem is that these performances, rather than enhancing those of the rest of the cast, merely highlight the banality of Roth's 'stars'.
With few exceptions, Roth has selected non-entities who bring little or no personality or emotion to their roles. Indeed, the moronic and depraved Bert (well played by DeBello - although one suspects the role was not too much of a stretch) is by far the most likeable of the group, as well as supplying most of the film's laughs. Roth might counter such criticism by saying that character-depth is not his priority. He is a self-proclaimed fan of the mediocre - The Last American Virgin, Porkys - and says that his only aim in making Cabin Fever was to scare: "All the while we kept the focus on the very idea that drove all my favourite horror films: what is terrifying?" And perhaps Roth's neglect of plot and character could be excused in deference to his one pure aim - to scare his audience. But unfortunately Cabin Fever isn't a very scary film.
Roth's failure to build the relationships between the characters before he tears them apart utterly devalues the horror of the situation he has constructed. The relationships between his leads are so flimsy that there is no sense of shock when the kids begin to turn on each other. One scene, in which Paul (Rider Strong from TV show Boy Meets World ) finishes off one of his dying friends with a spade, is gory and unpleasant, but would have far more effective if we had believed in a connection between the two beforehand. The idea of a flesh eating virus has some potential, given the media panics of recent years. Indeed, the director's personal experience of skin infection was the inspiration behind the film: "I was working on a horse farm in the south of Iceland when I was 19 years old. I had been cleaning out a barn, and got a skin infection in my face. I woke up in the middle of the night scratching my cheek, thinking I had a mosquito bite. I looked at my hand and saw chunks of skin. The next morning I attempted to shave, and, literally, shaved half my face off."
Roth's gruesome ordeal is mirrored in his film when Marcy (Cerina Vincent) begins shaving her legs, only to reveal that she has succumbed to the hideous virus. Although this scene establishes some sense of hysteria, Cabin Fever fails for the most part to convey the real panic and horror inherent in its premise. Roth spends too much time referencing 70's and 80's horror classics - "when they lock Karen in the shed that's definitely when they put Blair in the shed from John Carpenter's the thing " - and not enough time shaping the memorable scenes and images which his new subject matter could have inspired.
In homage to yet another of his favourite films, Roth uses David Hess' songs from Wes Craven's own creepy feature debut Last House on the Left to pretty good effect. But the theme provided by Angelo Badalamenti (he had promised to write some music for Roth's first feature), is unmemorable and has nothing of the quality of his work for Twin Peaks or The city of Lost Children.
Occasional sparks of quirkiness and humour aside, Cabin Fever is unoriginal and chaotic. Roth's devotion to 70's/80's genre movies appears to have stifled any personal style or inventiveness. This reverence is again evident as he talks excitedly about an upcoming project: "I'm writing and directing a teen comedy for Universal Studios called Scavenger Hunt. It's going to be like a full-on 1981 sex comedy."
More promisingly, Roth is co-writing a psychological horror called The Box with Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly. Roth will be directing and Kelly's Darko Entertainment will produce the film. It will be interesting to see if Roth's achievement matches his enthusiasm next time round. Elizabeth Griffin
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