Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009)
Country: USA
Production Company: Morningstar and Deerpath Films present, in association with Tunnel Inc, a Tonic Films Production
Producers: Lauren Vilchick, Patrick Durham, Jonathan Sachar
Co-Producers: Sam Froelich, Evan Astrowsky
Executive Producers: Susan Jackson, Jerry Kroll; Carr Miller Entertainment, Everett Miller, Chris Rutter; Tunnel Post, Kyle Dean Jackson, Alan Pao
Co-Executive Producers: Jeff Rice, Mary Aloe, Max Sinovel, Tre Lovell, Deborah Davis, Kelly Wolfington, Jason Hewitt
Director: Ti West
Screenplay: Joshua Malkin, from a story by Randy Perlstein and Ti West
Editor: Janice Hampton
Cinematographer: Eliot Rockett
Music: Ryan Shore
Music Supervisors: Alicia Miles, Matt Biffa
Sound: Richard Burton
Production Design: Tim Grimes
Special Makeup Effects: Quantum Creation FX/Christian Beckman
Special Effects: William Purcell
Second Unit Director: Terry Moews
Costume Designer: Leigh Leverett
Post Production Supervisor: Sebastian Perez-Burchard
Stunt Coordinators: John Copeman, John Gilbert
Main Title Animation: Lawson Deming
End Title Animation: Ana Maria Alvarado
Location: Wilmington, NC
Budget: $1 Million [estimated]
Running Time: 86 mins.
Cast: Rider Strong (Paul), Noah Segan (John), Alexi Wasser (Cassie), Rusty Kelley (Alex), Marc Senter (Marc), Giuseppe Andrews (Deputy Winston), Mark Borchardt (Herman), Michael Bowen (Principal Sinclair), Judah Friedlander (Toby), Larry Fessenden (Bill the Water Truck Driver), Amanda Jelks (Frederica), Thomas Blake Jr (Rick), Angela Oberer (Ms Hawker), Taylor Kowalski (Darryl), Alexander Isaiah Thomas (Dane), Lindsey Axelsson (Sandy), Lila Lucchetti (Karen), Caitlin Coons (Mary), Andrea Powell (Lucille), Regan Deal (Liz), Michael Nesbitt (Johnny Janitor), Marvin Cooper (Bus Driver), April Turner (Lady in Diner), Randy Bernard (Road Block Officer), Gabrielle Tuite (Jane), Stefani Wallace, Mary Katherine White (Topless Limo Girls) Stephani Drapeau ("Echo" the Stripper), Jesus Delgado, Mario Ramos, Josiah Authier, Tanner Wiley, Steve Josefson, Justin Milley (Strip Club Patrons).
Synopsis: The disease that laid waste to five friends in Cabin Fever (2003) has now taken hold on the water supply and infected production at the Down Home Water Company. After Paul, the last survivor of the group is killed, a truck arrives at the local high school to deliver a supply of bottled H2O for that evening's Prom…
Review: The "Alan Smithee" name was used from 1968 to 2000 by members of the Directors Guild of America who wished their names to be removed from films over which they had lost artistic control (usually in the edit suite). That Ti West requested this credit and was refused (he's not a member of the DGA and the pseudonym has long since been retired), should be taken as an indicator that Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever has some serious problems. The fact that the version released is at all watchable is down to West's original skewed vision - the influence of John Waters and Paul Bartel has been mentioned in interviews - even if the final result feels more Class of Nuke 'Em High than Multiple Maniacs or Eating Raoul.
The producers (all 18 of them) claim that the film is 90% West's vision, while West says that his original edit (he was replaced by Waters regular Janice Hampton) focused as much on off-kilter comedy as over-the-top gore. Either way the film stands or falls on the version released and while it is an unholy mess, there are flashes of brilliance that make it worth the rental.
Opening with an homage to Robocop, as an infected body explodes on impact with a moving vehicle, the film brilliantly bridges its predecessor with an animated opening title sequence - a nod to Eli Roth's original concept of a necrophiliac Song of the South - backed by The Cave Singers' perfect "Dancing on Our Graves". Indeed the music choices throughout are excellent with standouts including Sarah Burton's "One Way Ride to Hell", the Ramones' - or "The Rawones" as it's spelled in the closing titles - "Somebody Put Something in My Drink" and "Tonight It's Prom Night, All Night" from Paul Zaza and Carl Zittrer's 1980 Prom Night soundtrack).
From there we're deposited firmly in Superbad territory with Noah Segan (Deadgirl) as John, pining for an unattainable girl, Cassie (Alexi Wasser, in an ill-advised blonde wig), Rusty Kelley as Alex, his Jonah Hill-surrogate best friend, and Marc Senter (Wicked Lake) as Cassie's unconvincingly crazy ex-boyfriend. After a well-staged biology lesson dissection scene, the problems set in and bodily fluids begin to flow with a highly unlikely revenge blow job and an early death (Larry Fessenden in a cameo) that shows traces of truncation as Bill the Water Truck driver bleeds out through a tracheostomy valve that would have made more sense if we'd heard him talk before he died (kudos, though for the pancake cameo in this scene). The introduction of heroine Cassie is also oddly handled, with her repeated exclamations of "Ohmigod" initially leading us to think of her as a vacuous bimbo.
West has fun with some of the clichés of the genre, the getting-ready-for-Prom montage, played out to Patrick Hernandez's "Born to Be Alive", is good, but awkwardly intercut with scenes of Alex's early symptoms (an admittedly wince-inducing sequence with a loose fingernail and some Superglue) and would have been much better if allowed to play out on its own, like its obvious influence in Brian DePalma's Carrie (1976).
This sequence stands as a metaphor for the whole film, as throughout the remaining running time, the good - decent cameos from Judah Friedlander ("30 Rock") and Mark Borchardt (American Movie), an increased role for the original's Deputy Winston (Giuseppe Andrews), a couple of heartfelt and effectively-acted scenes from Noah Segan - are consistently undermined by the bad - Andrews' improvised lines are hit-and-miss and sequences involving a cool dude doing a fat chick for a bet, and the death of a pregnant teen are just mean spirited.
But the main deterioration happens in the final third, where all sense of logic and pace goes out the window. Cabin Fever's success was in contrasting the gross-out humor with a Cronenbergian progression of bodily decay. Here any sense of body horror is quickly jettisoned for projectile vomiting and oozing orifices, fine in and of themselves, but here the disease kills too quickly and the film rushes to an ending that the producers clearly felt was overly subtle compared with the preceding mayhem. We're then presented with a horribly misjudged coda (filmed without West's involvement), set in a strip club, that plays statutory rape for laughs and adds nothing other than running time. This is then compounded by a second animation sequence, vastly inferior to the first (illustrator Lawson Deming was unavailable), that magnifies the overall feeling of a great opportunity having gone terribly to waste.
Extras: “Prom Blows: Gore Reel” (3:07) a montage of gross-out scenes, “The Making of Gore” (12:47) behind-the-scenes featurette (made notable by West's absence), and red-band trailers from other Lionsgate releases (Blood Creek, Saw VI, Cabin Fever).
Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever was released on DVD on February 16th, 2010. An Unrated Director's Cut of Eli Roth's original Cabin Fever was released on Blu-ray the same day.
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