Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009)

Movie Info

Boy Meets Flesh-Eating Virus

The sickness has not been contained.  Paul (Rider Strong) has infected the water supply of a local bottling company and been struck by a school bus.  With the big prom night coming up and everyone headed to school and toxic blend of tainted water has been used to make the punch.  With the disease spreading quickly, John (Noah Segan) and his crush Cassie (Alexi Wasser) fight just to survive on what should be the best night of their lives.

Directed by Ti West, Cabin Fever 2:  Spring Fever is the follow-up to the cult hit Cabin Fever from 2002.  Due to extensive editing and rewrites, West tried to attached the Alan Smithee pseudonym to the work to disown himself from it but was denied.  The film was shelved for years and critically panned when it was finally released in 2009.

Might as well drink the punch…you’re all going to die

I didn’t like Cabin Fever.  There was no plot past the point of infection, the characters weren’t funny, and the acting was awful.  Cabin Fever 2:  Spring Fever has many of the same problems of the first film in addition to the general problem of having no vested interest in who lives or dies.

The movie basically has no point because the infection is so widespread that there is no hope for any of the characters to live.  Unlike a zombie film or standard horror picture where it takes being bitten, the flesh eating virus of the film just seems to spread through liquid or contact.  If only the water was infected then someone who didn’t drink the water would be safe…but you have the bus driver infected, the slutty girl infected, and so many other loose infections that there is no hope for survival and therefor little reason to continue watching.  The characters don’t even know how it spreads so the idea of John cutting his hand off in Evil Dead style is good for him but as a viewer you know that he’s dead and she’s dead (once she’s coated in his blood).

If cutting off your hand means this movie will end faster, I’m all for it…

With a cast of young and unknown actors (only Rider Strong and Giuseppe Andrews return…and Andrews’ side plot also is a pointless time waster), the movie just relies on gore.  The first movie did have some class to it because it is obvious Eli Roth likes horror films, but I just found that this movie was gross.  With festering sores, urination in punchbowls, and leaking penis shots, the movie just raises gag reflexes more than scares…and that isn’t the type of horror film I really like.  I could watch video of a surgery and it would have the same effect since the story isn’t compelling.

Cabin Fever 2:  Spring Fever is a definite “skip it” movie.  It isn’t fun, it isn’t scary, and it is just unnecessarily gross.  The movie is barely watchable and it feels like the makers were just grasping at genre straws to try to make the movie.  Despite the dismal reception, Cabin Fever continues.  Cabin Fever 2:  Spring Fever is followed by Cabin Fever:  Patient Zero in 2014.

Related Links:

Cabin Fever (2002)

Cabin Fever:  Patient Zero (2014)