Mindless Movie Monday: Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever

Recently I watched Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, despite the "glowing" review (sarcasm injected...he hated it too) by Matt over at Chuck Norris Ate My Baby. Hence, I should be drawn and quartered for not removing it from my Netflix queue. I totally forgot, and alas, received it anyway. So I wasted about 80 minutes of my life watching one of THE WORST movies I have seen in quite some time. No, I did not find humor in the stupidity. If I want that I'll watch Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore (neither of which I actually even like that well). If I want funny horror I'll watch Shaun of the Dead, dammit.

No offense intended to those of you who actually liked this, of course - and I have heard some caterwauling out there in horror blogger land for the haters to stop hating on this movie, but I have to pause and say... WTF? Did we really see the same movie?
And another question/comment: This was a Ti West movie? Really? Cabin Fever 2 is soooo far removed from the likes of House of the Devil and his other films that I just have a huge time connecting the two in any possible capacity. I have heard that he was trying hard to remove his name from being associated with the movie - so if that doesn't tell you the amount of suckage involved I don't know what does.

What we have here is this: The movie starts shortly after the events of the first Cabin Fever. Paul (Rider Strong), our only survivor, drags his diseased, sore-covered body out of the infected waters he fell into at the end of the first movie and lumbers out onto the road into the path of a school bus. Splat!

Enter Giuseppe Andrews, the "brilliant" party man policeman Winston from the original, who for some reason decides to convince the bus driver that he hit a moose. After the bus leaves for the high school, Winston discovers what can only be human remains.

For some reason, the film then jerks into an animated sequence that shows the audience that the water pumped from that corrupted creek is used to bottle and distribute Down Home Water, and of course it is delivered to the aforementioned high school, where they are preparing for prom.

Why in God's name they felt this cartoony segment was necessary is really beyond me. Perhaps I just couldn't find the humor in it, I don't know. I felt like I was watching School House Rock or something.

Anyway, we then meet our protagonist couple - only they aren't actually a couple. They are the expected stereotypical high school nerdy smart guy (Noah Segan) who pines for the cute girl (Alexi Wasser) who's dating the sexy school asshole. Smart guy is in love with cute girl but she considers them just friends. Please. Give me something new.

John (aka smart guy) asks Cassie (cute girl) to go to prom, but she refuses him with the whole 'just friends' clause. Meanwhile, John's friend Alex (alas, a textbook example of the overweight buddy character - played by Rusty Kelley) is getting a bit of oral sexual stimulation in the restroom from a sleasy girl with a nasty lip sore. (Gah!)
Alex feels it somehow appropriate to ask this chick to the prom, who in turn says she may meet him there after her shift at work. So Alex convinces John to go to prom with him to hang out and wait for Liz (dream girl/herpes vic) to arrive.

At prom, Down Home Water is being dumped into a punch bowl with powdered kool-aid by the token fat girl, Frederica. When a good-looking popular guy, Rick, convinces her to skinny dip in the pool, she begins to show signs of infection in the water while they are having sex. Her skin starts to slough off and Rick jumps out of the pool, only to realize she can't swim. He tries to save her with the pool strainer (how, I do not know...) but she pulls him in, causing him to whack his head on the side of the pool and drown. Poor Frederica then drowns as well. But hey, at least she didn't die a virgin, right?

While the pool deaths are occurring, someone infected urinates blood in the punch bowl then serves it up to the kids. The punch was already contaminated, so it really seemed like overkill to have to guy whizz in it...

Things intensify from there, with the student body all starting to self destruct in nasty fits of spewing blood and rotting body parts showing up everywhere.

Winston has in turn, figured out where the contamination came from but is too late to do anything as a government organization (the CCD - Contamination Control Division) has surfaced to irradicate the problem themselves, taking out a worker at the bottled water company and moving on to the high school to remedy the disaster taking place there. At the same time Winston is calling a cousin to come pick him up and get out of Dodge, the CCD has locked the kids in the school, chaining the doors shut.

John and Cassie somehow end up avoiding the contamination and are trying to find a way out of the school. Alex is not so lucky, and in one of the grossest few moments in the film, finds out his
johnson is expelling some really and truly disgusting goop. So while we are getting a full frontal in this scene, it was really tough not to spit up my Oreos in protest to the raw footage of that mess.
I immediately said a prayer afterward to any god that might hear me to deliver me from ever having to witness a display such as that. Yuk.
So Alex, though leaking gunk from his junk, makes it to the library and discovers what everyone is dealing with is Necrotizing fasciitis and there's no remedy or cure.

He relays this to John and Cassie who find him rotting away on the floor of the library. John finds a sore on his wrist and realizes he's contracted NF, and after taking a quick look at the book Alex was reading, heads to the wood shop to extricate his hand.

So after a lovely table saw incident which also involves a welding torch, they are intercepted by the CCD, who have no intention of letting them go.

Miraculously, Cassie is able to escape and eventually - after sprinting down the highway a bit - runs into Winston and his cousin and the three of them drive off, the men not realizing Cassie is infected.

A senseless, after-thought ending is tacked on to this, in which we get Liz (the skanky ho who serviced Alex) at her job - which entails her stripping, lap dancing, and having sex with customers. Which of course, just keeps the disease spreading. Etc, etc...

Matt (CNAMB) was correct in his review 100%. Cabin Fever 2 sucked worse than a brand new Hoover. Wow.
I have never seen more ridiculous gore for the sake of gore in my life. Actually, I'm not sure I'd call it gore, it was more like a banquet of all the most disgusting bodily fluids imaginable. Things leaked from nearly every orifice available. And a full monty from one of the stars? Yee-ha, you say? Not so fast... not cool at all while it was spewing all kinds of nasty! Gah!

And the blood. Come on, people. I mean, it just projectile-flew out of people's mouths. Not even a cool effect, because it was so over-the-top absurd, it couldn't even be construed as humor! At one point, someone's throat was cut (or something) and it blood just spurted out in fine sprays that looked so completely fake it wasn't even funny.

And here's another jab. They played the song Prom Night during the prom scenes. No, really! That, and a bunch of other horrific disco-induced wailing. Remind me, what decade is this?

Then there's the acting. While Noah Segan (Deadgirl) was passable, everyone else needed a serious class or two. Even Giuseppe Andrews, (as Officer Winston), tries hard to reach a level of decorum, but with this script...uh, no. His part was pointless filler, contrived from the word go. And the "man" this and that got old in a hurry. It was funny in the first Cabin Fever, but here - not so much, man.

I pretty much disliked nearly everything about this movie. Even one of the better gory scenes where a dude gets his head smashed in by a fire hydrant had me screaming "That's been done, asshole!" (see: Irréversible). While the production tries to achieve a level of continuity from the first film by bringing back Andrews, and with Rider Strong showing up in the first reel so you can get the drift that it's a sequel, it still never seems like more than a reason to make a few bucks.

And while I'm continuing to bitch, the whole scene with the fat chick and the cute jock getting it on in the swimming pool? That was just nauseating. And not so much because of her weight, although that really didn't help. It was just so implausible. Just another excuse to have a floating corpse.

Suffice it to say, if Ti West has a Director's Cut hidden somewhere that he might actually want to show audiences on a new DVD release, I'm not even sure I'd want to see it. I don't think I could sit through this turd again in any form.

Boo hiss.