Cabin Fever, a film about five friends who fall victim to a mysterious flesh-eating virus, earned nearly $35 million at the box office worldwide in 2002. It was Eli Roth’s directorial debut, and it won third as Best International Film at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, Canada. With the film’s huge success, Quentin Tarantino referred to Eli Roth as “the future of horror.”
Today’s generation of viewers will also get the feel of that horrifying story as Viva International Pictures (the same movie outfit that released blockbuster horror movies such as The Boy, Insidious 1, and Clown) presents the Cabin Fever remake by director Travis Zariwny.
This film came into being because of the initiative of two producers – Evan Astrowsky (Cabin Fever 3: Patient Zero and the original Cabin Fever) and Cassian Elwes (Dallas Buyers Club, Lawless, and All is Lost) who had the idea to reshoot the exact same script Roth and Randy Pearlstein created years ago. They raised the matter to Eli Roth (who is also famous for directing Hostel and its sequel, as well as his role in Inglourious Basterds), and he agreed to be the film’s Executive Producer.
Cabin Fever begins with a man walking in the woods and chances upon a dog, which he discovers to have a rotted flesh after poking it several times. Meanwhile, college friends Jeff, Marcy, Paul, Karen, and Bert are on their way to their rented cabin in the woods for a weeklong vacation. When they make a stop at a local convenience store, one of them gets into a nasty encounter with a retarded child and they all receive suspicious looks from the locals. Nevertheless, the friends go on with their organized trip. Their drinking spree and sexy time soon follow but don’t last long. All of a sudden, one of the girls incurs rotten boils, putting all of them in panic mode. Each tries to figure out where the dreadful infection came from and how they can stop themselves from succumbing to the flesh-eating virus.
Zariwny, who is a seasoned production designer, recalls his meeting with Roth before shooting the movie, “I asked Eli about scenes he wish he could have redone, what he would have like to add or take away, and if there was anything they had to previously cut due to time or resources.” From there, they began talking about how to make the new film even better than the original.
Shot in Oregon in only 20 days, Zariwny’s film is portrayed in a much more serious manner than the original, removing the “comedy horror” aspects in films such as the original Cabin Fever or The Cabin in the Woods. “One major aspect of my film is focusing on characters the audience can connect with. I want them to feel bad when/if certain characters die, as well as avoid the stereotypical horror film characters,” he says.
Zariwny also wanted to make each of the deaths have its own new twist which would not only keep the story moving forward, but also keep the old fans guessing. He says, “I was able to use sound and visual effects as their own character to intensify major scenes and events throughout the film, impacting the final product immensely.”
Playing the roles of the five friends are Gage Golightly (from the Nickelodeon series The Troop), Dustin Ingram (from Paranormal Activity 3, and the cult hit Meet Monica Velour), Nadine Crocker (from the TV series No Ordinary Family, 10 Things I Hate About You), Matthew Daddario (Delivery Man, When the Game Stands Tall), and Samuel Davis (A Close Divide and New Hope).
Zariwny commends the young actors for their professionalism. He reveals that he instructed them to remain in character between takes so they could be as one with their characters as they could possibly be. He says, “It may have been a more serious time on set than many were expecting, but everyone was game and in the end it lead to a great film.”
Cabin Fever is showing in cinemas on Wednesday from Viva International Pictures.