Cabin Fever

If only more horror films were made with this level of creativity. The much-ballyhooed 28 Days Later didn’t send much of a shiver up our spines—too much gimmicky herky-jerky camera and too few new twists on the ideas it steals from earlier and better horror films. Cabin Fever is another beast entirely. Not that it isn’t derivative—all horror movies are these days, but this one does it smartly, mixing up its shocks with a cruel cleverness that left us genuinely unsettled. A protégé of David Lynch, director Eli Roth shares the same deadpan, macabre sense of humor, which he uses to especially good effect with weirdo supporting characters like doofus cop Officer Winston and the Deliverance-esque hicks at the town store. Be warned that this is quite bloody and grotesque—flesh-eating virus is the chief villain here, but far from the only threat to our cabinful of doomed college students. We recommend this one only to those who think The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is artistically comparable to Scorsese and Kurosawa. You know who you are. You’ve been waiting for this one.