Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever

Word on the street has been surprisingly positive for this sequel to Eli Roth's highly misunderstood 2002 film debut. Considering its storied and well-known traumatic history, and the fact that it was a DTV sequel is something that doesn't bode well for any horror movie, but I started to actually want to give this sequel a shot and check it out for myself. Now, I'm not one to let my expectations get the best of me, so I know that is not the problem here, but what anyone sees in this movie is well beyond me.

Picking up almost immediately after the events in the first Cabin Fever, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever never actually picks up anywhere. Instead, you are just plopped into the lives of impossibly stereotypical characters, living mundane and even more typical lives. I mean, the main character is a super smart (but not ugly, of course) nerd, who has been in love with his female best friend since they were kids. Only problem is, she is dating the resident dick face, and is blind to the love that said smart and compassionate best friend has for her. Crazy, right?! Now get this, the resident dick face hates the sweet and well-meaning nerd and kicks his ass warning him to stay the fuck away from his girl, but that doesn't stop nerd boy, oh no siree.

Is any of this starting to sound familiar at all? It should, it's the plot to 209,635 other movies, many of which are much better than Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever.

It's so cliché and pointless, in fact, this film is the definition of pointless as even the weak and simple plot has no sort of direction whatsoever. Nothing fits right, scenes are so random, aimless, and serve no purpose at all. For example, there is a scene with two "random" characters, one is a cool guy jock, and the other is a loser obese girl. For whatever reason (as in there isn't one), they have a sex scene in a pool and it would seem the only point of this scene is for something gross to happen to them. What happens is she loses a few teeth, the guy overreacts, swims away and she drowns. That's all. No fucking point. Even serving as a catalyst for the gruesome events to come, the scene fails on all points, though, there is not point for it to fail on I guess.

One of the only cool things in Spring Fever was the return of Giuseppe Andrews, but even his character of Winston really has no objective in the film. However, his role in Cabin Fever was somewhat pointless, but it was at least fun, quirky, and worked within the type of film that Cabin Fever was. Here, it feels like it was just forced and shoehorned…trying to capture something that could only be captured once. Still, at least with Winston came the cameo of Mark Borchardt, who surprisingly was much better acting wise than much of the film's cast, all of whom were far from good. Actually, Noah Segan wasn't too bad when he wasn't yelling, but that's really it.

Spring Fever is not funny enough (or at all), it's not gross enough, but it tries so hard to be both of these things. All of the humor falls flat and even though there are a few very gross scenes, there is nothing to be moved by with this one. I was really expecting this movie to be disgusting, and granted there is some nasty shit, there was not really enough to impress me. Seeing as it takes place at a high school and during prom, one would expect a major prom blowout, but instead, all there was was a bunch of hose styled projectile puke blood, then dead. That's it. It should have been the big set piece to display some nasty stuff, but instead they displayed how not to make someone puke. Unless they were trying to be funny, that is. In that case, it wasn't funny at all.

The entire film feels very incomplete and scatterbrained and that carries into some of the technical pieces with its lack of flow and weak editing. Even worse is I do not think I have ever heard a film with worse sound editing than with Cabin Fever 2. There is a scene when two characters are walking down the street having a conversation, but you can barely make out what they're saying. Why? Because the song playing was WAY TOO LOUD, and even worse was the sound of wind flowing through the trees and leaves. I was flabbergasted by just how intrusive the sound of the leaves blowing was and I couldn't wait for the scene to end it was so awful and nerve wracking.

With that said, there area few things that are positive about Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, but not many. I like the way the movie looks with some of the set design and how a few scenes are shot (especially the prom stuff). It definitely has a certain look that could be appealing if put together in a cohesive and competent way. Some of the make-up and gag FX are quite well done and look super impressive. Even though the film lacked in the gross department, there were a handful of awesome little moments, but the two standouts were the head bashing via fire extinguisher and band saw hand removal scene. Actually, the hand removal scene was going pretty damned well, until something so completely ridiculous happened just in time to ruin one of the few good moments in this otherwise shit piss of a film.

There was a golden opportunity to have a fun little body horror film with Cabin Fever 2 – there is the hint of something good buried somewhere in the film, but it's just so disjointed and sloppy. I hardly even tapped into the vastness of what's wrong with this movie (the ending?!! UGHH!), but I'm just tired of even thinking about it anymore. I just really disliked this one and as most of you know, it is a rare thing for me to hate a movie with as much passion as I hate Cabin Fever 2 right now. While so many sling shit at something like Book of Shadows, Spring Fever makes that film look like the fucking Empire Strikes Back. One things for sure, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever is the worst film I have seen in 2010 thus far, which is incredibly disappointing considering how many people have seemed to enjoy it.