You may not have noticed unless you're a true horror geek, but in the last decade Eli Roth's Cabin Fever has actually developed into its own franchise. The first sequel, titled Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, was made back in 2009, and a second, called Cabin Fever: Patient Zero was actually released earlier this year. Rather than moving forward, however, it now seems that the series is taking a step backwards, as it has been announced that the Eli Roth original is getting remade - but with an extra special twist.
Deadline has the news of the developing Cabin Fever remake, including the bizarre news that the new film will be using the exact same script that was used for the original. That's right: instead of taking the original idea and reworking in some kind of interesting way, the remake will instead once again use the screenplay that was co-written by Eli Roth and Randy Pearlstein. As a result of this, the film is moving along incredibly quickly, and there are actually plans to start filming this week in Portland, Oregon. Filmmaker Travis Zariwny is attached to direct the movie, while Roth is attached as an executive producer. It's been announced that Teen Wolf‘s Gage Golightly, Dustin Ingram, Samuel Davis, Matthew Daddario and Nadine Crocker will all be starring in the movie, but it's unclear what roles they will be taking.
For those unfamiliar with the original Cabin Fever, the movie centered on a group of five college grads who decide to take a weekend vacation in a cabin in the woods (a rookie mistake). Rather than the cabin being haunted by ghosts or demons, however, this particular location has been infested with a horrifying flesh-eating virus that slowly chews its way through the cast. Being an Eli Roth-directed feature, the film features a good number of horrific moments and gross out gags - like what you'll find in the clip below (WARNING: Very NSFW)
Originally there was a plan to make Cabin Fever: Patient Zero and a sequel called Cabin Fever: Outbreak as back-to-back prequels to the original Eli Roth movie, but that idea has been scrapped in favor of this new remake. My question is: why? Gus Van Sant's 1998 shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho already proved that there's no water in this well, and I can't honestly figure out why the franchise would move in this direction. Hopefully there will be some kind of twist to it, but I don't have a ton of confidence in that hope.
