GORE IN THE STORE
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Directed by Tie West. Starring Rider Strong, Giuseppe Andrews, Noah Segan, Alexander Isaiah Thomas, Alexi Wasser, Regan Deal, Rusty Kelley. 2009, USA, Horror, 87 minutes.

DVD release date 22nd February 2010. RRP: £12.99. BUY NOW

Picking up where Eli Roth’s original film ended, Cabin Fever 2 opens with a fatally infected survivor (Rider Strong) meeting a grisly demise by school bus. Stoner cop Deputy Winston (Giuseppe Andrews, also returning from the original) is first on the scene of the accident and dismisses it as a simple, if splattery, animal roadkill. Meanwhile infected creek water has found it’s way into a local mineral water bottling plant. The first infected supplies are delivered to the same local high school to which the bus delivering its cargo of fresh meat.

It is the final weeks of the academic year and preparations are underway for the prom. Cool-geek John (Noah Segan) is being cock-blocked from the love of his life Cassie (Alexi Wasser) by her odious on-again-off-again jock boyfriend, Marc (Marc Senter). As the dance begins, contaminated water (and some other very unwelcome fluids) finds its way into the students’ punch. Will John be able to persuade Cassie that her boyfriend sucks, avoid the tainted punch and make it out of high school before the inevitable flesh eating carnage begins?

Roth made his debut with Cabin Fever in 2002, you might very well ask why it has taken so long to produce this sequel. Therein lies a sorry tale. Director Ti West has disowned this film (actually finished back in 2007) after it was apparently subject to considerable re-shoots and re-cutting by the producers. Whether West’s original vision would have given a better result is debatable, but it’s undeniable that the product now on display is a complete mess. Stylistically it looks as though West was trying to capture something of the trash aesthetic of pre-Hairspray John Waters, as well as nods to a raft of high school movies from Grease to Carrie. The better gross-out moments owe a clear debt to Waters (and possibly Todd Haynes’ Poison) focusing on the pustulant, oozing, infectious aspects of teenage bodies. There is one STD inspired moment that genuinely turned my stomach.

Unfortunately if there ever was any wit in the teen dialogue, or depth to the characters beyond standard teen genre tropes, it has been lost in the extensive post production. The plot seems to lack key scenes, lurching into Romero territory in the final third as armed guys in biological warfare garb appear from seemingly out of nowhere. The two parallel plot strands - John and Cassie’s attempts to escape the school and Deputy Winston’s misadventures - fail to dovetail in a satisfactory way leading to multiple endings (including one delivered as animation) and narrative dead ends.

Also there’s no cabins in it.

Extras on the disc include a brief behind the scenes from which West is notably absent, in fact he seem to be he-who-shall-not-be-named. It’s pretty perfunctory, but there’s some good stuff on the gore FX for those of you who like those kind of details. There’s also a gore reel, which has some FX outtakes.

Stewart Barr.

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