By Chris Summerfield
Eli Roth, the director behind, hostel 1 and 2, both movies that had sure caused a stir in the horror world began his directing career in the big time with this movie in which he also co wrote…
The movie…
Well now the idea of college students heading out to a cabin situated in the woods has been popular since “Evil dead” and have remained popular, most of which the antagonist is either a demon or as maniac loose all of which are entertaining and gripping to watch, however this cabin movie, even though entertaining and gripping, does not focus upon supernatural demons or maniacs but upon an idea that doesn’t get used all that much in horror, being an flesh eating bacterial disease.
The characters and story…
Five frisky college graduates, Paul, (Rider Strong) Bert, (James Debello) Karen, (Jordan Ladd) Marcy, (Cerina Vincent) and Jeff, (Joey Kern) are to head out to the wilderness, where they are renting a cabin, to celebrate spring break. The vacation, one of partying, hunting and sex of course, what could possible go wrong? Well now let’s add some rather bizarre locals, in which there is, an hermit, known as Henry, (Arie Verveen) a crazed child, and a party loving deputy, Deputy Winston (Gluseppe Andrews) and of course there is the flesh eating virus… result… One twisted, gory, dark humoured movie…
And as regards this movie what I find interesting is how we witness the deterioration of the five college kid’s friendship through paranoia and fear of this unknown flesh eating bacteria… Karen being the first infected and is therefore dumped in to a shed for isolation…
The battle for survival begins against this flesh eating virus that sure turn’s beauty in to ugliness, not just in physical form and is bound to spread beyond the cabin.
As stated this movie is gory, but then again Eli Roth, is never one to shy from gore, to pick out a few memorable moments in this film I would say, Marcy, taking a bath with a razor and of course the hungry dog feeding on the infected…
And whilst watching this movie I did find myself trying to consider what life was like back in 14th Century when suddenly an unknown virus swept through Europe leaving millions upon millions dead, how paranoid would people have been and how far did they go to protect themselves? Until they realised those pesky, black rats with their fleas were behind it…
Now as regards the climax to this film… well I won’t spoil it however as the credits roll there is a rather cool bluegrass/country type band that sure know how to pick their guitars…
One last thing to mention being this movie was supposed inspired by an event in Mr Roth’s life, well regards rating this movie, definitely worthy of 7.5/10
