Cabin Fever is one of the few franchises that isn’t getting too stale. The large gaps of time between releases are the biggest contributions to that. The original Cabin Fever was released in 2002, followed by Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever in 2009, and now Cabin Fever 3: Patient Zero in 2014. All three films follow a particularly nasty flesh eating virus and a group of friends trying to survive the disease. Having finished the third movie, I bet you’re wondering why you should spend your money watching the third movie of repetitive, flesh eating events. My answer to that question is as follows…
Cabin Fever 3: Patient Zero is written by Jake Wade Wall (When A Stranger Calls remake, The Hitcher remake) and directed by Kaare Andrews (Altitude, The ABCs of Death). Cast members include Sean Astin (The Goonies, The Lord of the Rings), Currie Graham (Assault on Precinct 13, Pompeii), Ryan Donowho (“The O.C.,” The Ganzfeld Haunting), Brando Eaton (“Zoey 101,” “Dexter”), Jillian Murray (The Graves, Never Back Down 2), Mitch Ryan (“One Tree Hill”), Solly Duran, Lydia Hearst, and Claudette Lali.
In Cabin Fever 3: Patient Zero, “A group of friends think they’re going to the perfect spot for a bachelor party; a secluded private isand. They quickly learn the island is not as private as they thought. The island is home to a lab thought to be empty, but in actuality a deadly, extremely fast acting, flesh eating virus has just escaped containment. Now everyone on the island has to fight not only to survive the outbreak, but also to survive each other.”
Cabin Fever 3: Patient Zero is actually pretty entertaining, but not from a horror film stand point. The film features beautiful women, beautiful men, and breathtaking scenery of oceans and tropical islands. Interlaced with the eye candy are lots of drug and alcohol use, silly banter and toilet humor, and a lot of good backstory into the lives of the characters reaching back to childhood. Once the outbreak occurs, the fact that there is a secret facility adds an extra layer to the mood of the movie, interesting adding both a creepy vibe and an action-adventure vibe to the title. Looking at it as a horror viewer on the outside, the film was already enjoyable without the use of gore and horror. My only suggestion would have been adding another character or two to the group of friends. In hindsight, things were starting out good here.
The flesh eating virus and its resulting gore is what holds this film together. Without it there wouldn’t be any progression and the first film without an antagonist. My hope going into this movie was that more information about the virus would be explored. The film added another chapter to the virus handbook in only one way, the reveal of patient zero – a man whose body is resistant to the virus and shows no symptoms of the illness. Great! He was being monitored and tested on by scientists and doctors in the secret facility, so viewers are bound to learn more about the cabin fever virus, right? Wrong! Nothing new was brought to the table after that one point of interest; just things we knew already like the virus is also transmittable through contaminated water and that it works quicker in some people. This for me was the first let down, and it was a pretty big let down at that.
My second let down came in the form of the vibe, the feel of the movie in the last half. While it started out pleasant and almost like a milder teen-comedy, in the second half – due to the virus spreading to several members of the group – the movie spiraled out of control. And I feel like it completely lost itself. At points it felt like a horror survival game turned into a movie. Then it felt like a weird Dawn of the Dead sequel with zombie cops shooting guns. It was all very weird and worse, it was pieced together oddly. I was not a fan of the editing during the last quarter of the movie. I think this movie had too much going on all at one time, probably playing catch up because of all the backstory it built in the beginning scenes. If you’re going to be a virus movie, be a virus movie…not a science fiction movie, not a zombie movie, not an action-thriller. Seriously, what the Hell was up with the zombie cop? Can someone please explain that to me?
Luckily, this movie had a lot of redeemable qualities with the gore, both in hilarity and actual gruesomeness. The two scenes that stick out to me the most was one of the group of friends going down on his virus infected girlfriend. Mmmmhm! You can guess the outcome from that…and it was glorious! The other scene I remember the most is the chick fight between the girlfriend I just mentioned and a fleeing scientist. It’s hilarious – and also a great example of movie special effects – and ends with one of the women getting their skull beaten in with a 14 inch black dildo. Because, folks, you can’t have amazing, realistic looking special effects without having at least a little fun with it! And this movie will not disappoint. It’s definitely a complete switch from the first Cabin Fever in terms of seriousness, but, as I said above, it was pretty entertaining in that regard.
Should there ever be a fourth movie, it would need a lot of improvement to make up for the lack of progress in this sequel. Again, nothing new here was accomplished. It was a good stand alone movie, probably on par with the second entry in the franchise, and Jillian Murray is certainly the stand out in terms of talent. I’m really on the fence with this one. Looking at it as a dramatic comedy, it was great. Adding in the gore made the movie confusing but more suspenseful at the same time. This is a complete clusterfuck, too much going on at once…but I’ll give it a 6.5 out of 10 for effort.
