Cabin Fever

Tonite I wandered out of my apartment to see a midnite flick. It was either going to be Matchstick Men or Cabin Fever. I'm pretty sure I made the right choice. (f nicholas cage). I threw on a big sweatshirt with one of those pouches and in there I stuffed some wasabi peas (can't find an acceptable replacement) and an Almond Joy (impulse buy) and a big water. The theater was pretty crowded and chatty. I scrunched down in my seat and got kinda psyched up for this movie. I pulled up my hood because the AC was cranking and checked out  the crowd at the midnite show.

Behind me a guy and chick talking up stuff bout recent horror movies. It was kind of cool because they were together as a couple (i think) and they both so dug horror. This dude in the row infront of me was decked out with a trucker hat and like fancy silver glasses.  To my right was some weird blank looking guy in a shiny sweatsuit. He looked like a killer. An old lady with makeup on was a few rows over. And there were other random freaks in the theater. And right in the middle there was me. Sitting there with my hood up and quietly taking my goodies out of the pouch of my sweatshirt ...glad that I wasn't a freak like them...

I went to this movie knowing nothing bout it. The best way to go of course. The only reason it grabbed my attention at all was because the tv ad bragged about how Peter Jackson thought it was riveting or whatever. And I thought it was weird to see a director promote another movie like that but whatever. I saw a preview for Texas Chainsaw. It looked concerningly clean. Anyway this movie starts up with some coolio credits and within the first 10 minutes I found myself trying to nail down what the movie was trying to be. A dumb teen movie? A comedy? Horror with a twist? A spoof? Cultish suction flick? After a while I gave up on that because this movie decided not to really decide. It sort of just went and it was really hard not to enjoy the ride.

This flick had a certain style. The wink of it was fun. It had the funny and it had the scary. And sometimes the funny and scary got mixed swirly good. And some surreally weirdness and stuff.  I was smiling while watching it. But this flick is a ways away from real greatness. The greatest horror movies are wrapped in a tension that gets under your skin and slithers around in there while whispering something about still being your friend. And then you get its sense of humor. This movie didn't dig deep enough to get under my skin. The tension didn't build to the point where I'd let it in. Too jokey to really hit home on the true creepout... but gory goodness to score the grossout no doubt..

The movie constantly jumped around to grab attention. And it got it. I got shocked a couple times. Yelped out loud twice. And laughed out loud a bunch of times. And left me a little bit scared of the woods.  But toward the end.. it broke. And spun off into a series of random irrational moments that just didn't click for me. At the time when I needed it to pull me in tight and show me it was for real... it just sort of went through the motions with no clear cut idea in mind ....and of course wrapped everything up with a dumb joke to let ya know it was really just kidding...

Three Good Things About This Movie

- It's really good stab at making a good horror movie and the effort shows. Bloody good show.
- It doesn't bog itself down with too much talky talk. It plugs in just enough to let you know where everyone is at. (which nicely boiled down to... screw you guys! I wanna live!)
- It's got a good mix of scary and funny and gory and creepy.

Three Bad Things About This Movie

- It felt a little geek gimmicky.
- Sometimes the bad logic or unrealistic scenarios took me too far away from being scared in reality.
- Lacked a good twist which would have put this movie over the top. No twist. No top.

All in all I think this movie really will fly with horror fans who like their Raimi, Hooper, and Romero from back in the day. It takes a certain weirdness to dig those. Sure this flick is kind of a messy and it had some issues- but I was able to cut it alot of slack. Because for me it was a respectable mmm mmm memory trip back to a time when horror was still kicking and screaming... and not yet done to death.

<<<chyatt

PS I got a request for the 'boobage factor' of this movie. There was one set displayed. They were tres nice.