This movie was wildly uneven, but something tells me that the filmmakers were reveling in that.

The gallows type humor was abundant, perhaps a little too much so. I did crack up pretty loudly quite a few times. Most of the comedies i've seen this year didn't even do that!

It's chock full of references to other great horror films which normally is not a good thing, but this film does pay loving tribute to them.

I had a lot of fun up until the ending, which is almost always a let down in horror films, and this film is no exception.

I believe the ending/coda to be a reference to:



Which ultimately is the problem of the film. Not satisifed with being one thing. In any case, I liked the entertainment the film provided. Good cheeky fun.

Now hopefully we'll get the real thing one day again like in them 70's...

Grade: B+

I just got back from seeing it, and I thought it was brilliant! Don't expect a horror film that takes itself seriously, those pretty much suck anyway IMO.

Full of references, and fully self aware of how ridiculous horror movie cliches play out. You could tell the filmmakers were having a blast making it, and laughing at all of the set ups and pay offs. I was too.

All I can really say was I was having a lot of fun watching it. Eli Roth took great pains to have all of the set pieces, gore, shocks, plot devices of a 70's/80's horror flick, and then make the film really original in it's humour and goofiness.

The "Pancakes" scene may be my favorite scene in a movie in the last 10 years!!!

Same here! It was so completely surreal and out of the blue... In almost any other movie, I would've been like, "Uhh, what the hell?" but for whatever reason, it fit so perfectly here. Fantastic.

I think the kid was more or less an homage to the one in Deliverance, albeit a really bizarre homage.

As for

Wow, the only thing original in this movie were the jokes. I 'm not sure if this movie was made as joke or to be taken seriously.i left the theater upset after watching this. The filmaker just did TOO Much "Bitting"aka "homage" The filmaker should just do comedy.

Heh, I liked the shotgun bit.

I think of the film as more of a dark horror comedy in the same vain of Evil Dead II instead of a serious horror film like say Romero's Dead films. I didn't take the film as being "totally" serious, and I had a freakin' blast. One of the most entertaining films of 2003.

I thought it was hilarious, gory and all out entertaining... Sure some of it didn't pay off the way it could have, but overall, I really really liked this flick. The shopkeeper and his family totally rule



Anyhow, I was satisfied...my friend HATED this movie though... go figure.

MATT

4 out of 5 stars

Caught it yesterday... I thought it was good. I just hope there's a commentary on the DVD.

A lot of hype went into this movie, especially from Fangoria. I'm not sure if the hype was justifiable, but the film was really good.

Pros:
-homages that only real horror fans will notice
-gore/cringe-inducing-moments
-acting

Cons:
-overall pacing seemed a bit slow, but nothing that hindred the film
-"pancake" scene; wierd

I enjoyed myself; not a comical as some have said, but I did laugh a lot. This is the type of movie horror fans will like, but non-horor fans won't. Case point: Ebert and Reoper hated this, the DvdTalk review hated this, but Fangoria, Creature-Corner.com, Cinescape.com liked it alot, with general reviews being 3/4 or B.
I sense that in the future, this will be a cult film of somesorts, much like House of 1000 Corpses and Wrong Turn will be. I enjoyed it a lot; must buy dvd.

Grade: B

Caught this last night, your above quote is the most dead on thing said in this thread. God bless this forum, but some of it's movie reviewers are very bias as are Ebert & Reoper & many of the other big reviewers. Just b/c they don't like something, doesn't mean it fails or it's bad. In fact the DVD talk review just made me mad. I wish they would get either an objective reviewer or a fan of the genre to review movies like Cabin Fever. She trashes the movie COMPLETELY missing the goal of a movie like Cabin Fever yet in the same review she praises 28 Days Later which does exactly what she hated Cabin Fever for doing. And 28 Days Later IMO was one of the most unoriginal, over-hyped, crappy horror movies of the past few years.


I didn't love the Cabin Fever, but it's probably the best American horror film of the past 5 + years. But I have to disagree w/ you on Wrong Turn & Corpses being cult hits.

I give the movie a low B- maybe a high C+, but it's an excellent American horror movie & probably the best pure horror film to come out of the states in years.

Up until the second act, all I could (not) focus on was absolute eye-rolling dialogue and cardboard characters. I had only seen Cabin Fever because Matchstick Men and Mexico were too long of a wait till showtime and I had seen some quote by Peter Jackson praising this film. I don't know what the actual deal is, but I managed to convince myself that this must have been an ultra-independent horror piece by very hard working fresh film school grads rather than a studio picture, which allowed me to give it some major leeway in the script quality-control dept. Thus, I was able to get into it more when I shifted my focus onto the tragic situation that arises when rather than the bonehead reactions of our main characters. Oh yes, I certainly cringed bigtime in many of the right moments yet constantly felt cheated by being reminded that there was a scriptwriter I wanted to slap for throwing in cheap gore. I do applaud the unconventional situations and hard choices presented, such as the above spoiler. In the end, this film better have been the opus of two dudes funding a film on their credit cards or I'll be pissed I paid $8.50 to see it.

[RobGordon]"How can it be bullshit to state a preference?"[/RobGordon]

I'm a horror fan and I was really disappointed with this film. I did like the cinematography and the creepy cabin in the woods atmosphere. The music by Angelo Badalamenti was good but seemed very out of place in this movie.

The characters with the exception of the shy guy who liked Jordan Ladd were unsympathetic and I did not care what happened to them. The comedy fell flat and I absolutely hated the goofy party-obsessed deputy.

The ending was lifted straight out of a classic horror film but did not have the same emotional shock and impact.

Rating: C-

A nice surprise of a film..& shows horror fans today are never satisfied. Though having divided reactions on films is a good thing. It's just strange that everyone hypes up certain films as a 'genre savior' long before release,only to be unhappy when they do see the film & rip it apart(house of 1000 Corpes being another example).


So with that out of the way. I thought the film was really good & way better than the negative reviewers make it seem. It was actually much darker than people hint at(trying to make it seem like an all out frat comedy). Yes it has some quirky charecters with lead to some quirky humor. Yet that never got in the way of the tension mounting hopelessness of the situation

All in all it was a step in the right direction & seems like Horror is coming back to it's roots.

Now maybe if directors would have the guts to end films with an extreme downbeat ending(Corpses succeeded with that),rather than trying to get one last laugh(as in this case). Things will be better off. Yet at least the ending is not happy despite the humor & a nice twist on pulling the rug out from under you.

Also was great to see some Last House on the Left tunes on the big screen. I love that film!

I must be getting old because I saw this yesterday and have no clue what the "pancake" scene is. Can someone remind me? Thanks

Remember the rest?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I rememder now.

Thanks

I'm torn on this one. I enjoyed the humor, and I enjoyed the horror, but I didn't like the way they were put together. It's sort of like how I like chocolate syrup, and I like pizza, but I wouldn't like pizza covered in choclate syrup.

My big problem with the movie is that it just shifted gears randomly. The tone would change abruptly from scene to scene. They'd throw some over-the-top comedy in, then get ultra-serious the next minute, only to throw in some wacked out WTF scene. It's a shame, because this could've been a great horror comedy, or a genuinely creepy straight-up horror film, but it by trying to do too much it just ended up being okay.

Went to see this today, and it was the first time I saw a movie in an entirely empty theater. It was just me, on a Wednesday afternoon in an AMC theater in San Francisco. I couldn't believe that noone else wanted to see it at that time too.

Anyway, I liked it and thought it was well worth a matinee price. It was a bit creepy though to watch this in a big theater all by myself. Halfway through the movie, some guy entered the theater and sat down a row or so behind me, and I could hear his heavy breathing. That freaked me out a little. What if some psycho was going to kill me in an empty theater showing a horror movie? Fortunately, he got up and left after another 10 minutes.

Sorry, it's just that, you looked so familiar from the back. Then, after about 10 minutes, you just looked scared so I left.



-Gunshy

I am not sure how anyone truly believes this was a horror... I enjoyed the movie because it was so off pace. Whatever I was conditioned to after 20+ years of horror movies was twisted in a fun way. I have not had this much fun in a theatre for years.

Ummmm.....exactly WHAT were you doing?