Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009)


REVIEWER RATING: 
5/10


Eli Roth's Cabin Fever opened to theaters back in 2002 and for its low-budget was fairly successful at the box office. Talks of a sequel with Eli returning was brought up a couple years later, but the man became too busy with other projects to pursue the sequel, and Ti West (The Roost, The House of the Devil) came into the project in 2006, with promises of bringing something new to the table. I personally didn't really like the first Cabin Fever all that much. I liked the concept, but wasn't a fan of the comedy or the random weirdness it offered.

Writer/director Ti West has publicly disowned this sequel, as he and the studio couldn't agree on the direction the film should take. Although about 90% of his footage is still there, a new ending was filmed and apparently the movie was edited a certain way that Ti doesn't agree with. This explains why after filming completed in 2007 that it took almost three years to get a proper release. Whether Ti's vision would have been any better than what was given to us remains to be seen, but from what I watched, I wasn't impressed.

The story takes place shortly after the events of the first, bringing back Rider Strong as Paul for a brief appearance in the beginning, as he awakens in the nearby lake. The bacteria finds its way into the water system and to a factory that produces bottled water for the nearby towns. The water must not run through much of a filtration process, because it causes all the new water to become contaminated, giving anyone who drinks it the flesh-eating virus. The first drop off point for the water? A local high school.

Aside from Paul's brief cameo appearance, we see the return of the whacked out Deputy Winston (Giuseppe Andrews), whose role isn't entirely pointless this time 'round. In this sequel the Deputy catches onto what's happened to the water and attempts to warn others of what will occur to those who drink it, before skipping town of course.

The first half of the movie is basically just the build up to prom, following the dorky lead, as he tries to find a date and given various shots of people around the school drinking the bottled water and developing symptoms of the bacteria. Of course, a majority of the mayhem doesn't occur until everyone's at prom, offering up a sizeable amount of blood and bodies. Speaking of which, the gore is really amped up big time in this sequel. The first film promised a lot of gore, which we never really received, but this film makes up for that in a big way.

We get severed limbs and a lot of rotted away faces and body parts. There's a great scene involving someone's wrist getting sawed off and another of a guy getting his face crushed. Whenever there's a point where you think the camera will shy away from a particular scene, it does the opposite and shows everything in its gory goodness. There are also a few "gross-out" scenes in the movie -- one in particular involved a shot of a dude's penis spewing blood and pus from the tip; nasty!

Sadly, had it not been for the gore, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the movie much -- the "comedy" it offered didn't really work for me and there wasn't a lot of character development or story, leaving little else to like about the pic. In the second half of the flick we're shown several armed men in hazmat suits sealing off the school and shooting anyone infected, however we're never revealed who they are or how they know of the flesh-eating bacteria, which I suppose may be explained in a potential third film (if it ever happens).

By the time the credits roll you realize just how pointless this sequel was, as it really didn't bring anything new to the table (like was promised), except for a larger body count and lots of gore. Fans of the first will likely be disappointed. Worth a check for the gore, but avoid otherwise.
OVERALL: 
By the time the credits roll you realize just how pointless this sequel was, as it really didn't bring anything new to the table (like was promised), except for a larger body count and lots of gore. Fans of the first will likely be disappointed. Worth a check for the gore, but avoid otherwise.


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