A year after it became a festival favourite at the Toronto International Film Festival and was warmly endorsed by Peter Jackson, director of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, Cabin Fever is finally shocking millions across North America.

The critics are divided: some found it yet another low-budget gory film that is dumb and uninspiring. But several major critics, including Stephen Holden of The New York Times, thought the film was far above the regular horror films and its young and inexperienced cast 'gave us real shivers as they confronted a horrible villain'.

There are indeed far superior movies in this genre, including the recent surprise hit 28 Days. And yet this first-time work by Eli Roth has its own guilty pleasures.

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Don't see it unless you have a strong sense of the absurd to enjoy this over-the-top horror movie. And you will not be able to enjoy it fully if you are not familiar with the pulp horror classics.

What spoils the film in the long run is the feeling that Roth is manipulating us too much and many scenes are too contrived to pay homage to some of the horror icons of the 1970s and 1980s.

Made for about $1 million, Cabin Fever tells the story of young men and women menaced by a contagious disease that ravages its victims' skin and makes them vomit blood.

Five self-indulging college kids head to the woods for a little party-hearty vacation. Jeff (Joey Kern) and Marcy (Cerina Vincent) have sex on their minds while Karen (Jordan Ladd) and Paul (Rider Strong) are stuck in a friends-or-lovers dilemma. Bert (James DeBello) just wants to drink and shoot squirrels and behave obnoxiously.

You know the kids will not continue to have fun. Your suspicion that some of these guys will have an awful death comes true too.

When a raving poacher stumbles rotting and bloody into the teenagers, they respond with gunshot blasts. Like elsewhere in the film, Roth uses the sequence to say something about contemporary America and its fear of strangers. As the victim's flesh-eating virus is revealed as no bogeyman, there is no consolation for the young men and women. For, contact has been made.

Soon one member of the group shows signs of infection when her skin starts to bubble and burn. The group's compassion turns to repulsion and horror as she deteriorates before their very eyes. As they lock her in a shed, the fear of contagion sets in and the companions keep wondering who the next victim will be.

While the concomitant developments are horrible, Roth shows them with a tightly controlled force, as he constructs a world of isolation, helplessness, and despair. Roth also pays tribute to some of his favourites like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by creating scenes similar to the ones in those horror classics. Veteran horror movie watchers will recognise the scene in which the camera lingers over a shapely backside.

Among the film's more absurd and sensational scenes is the one in which Cerina Vincent in the bathtub shaves her legs as the virus eats away.

CREDITS
Cast: Jordan Ladd, James DeBello, Rider Strong, Joey Kern, Cerina Vincent
Story-direction: Eli Roth
Running time: 95 minutes
Rating: R for strong violence and gore, sexuality, language and brief drug use
Distributor: Lions Gate Films