Cabin Fever: Patient Zero (2014)

Directed by Kaare Andrews [Other horror films: Altitude (2010), The ABCs of Death (2012, segment ‘V is for Vagitus’)]

For the first thirty to forty minutes, I was rather enjoying this flick, as they left much of the idiotic comedy that plagues the first two films and ventured more for a serious look at the flesh-eating disease. And it works out for about half the film, but then multiple factors come together to lead Patient Zero into a repetitive, rather uninspiring, direction.

It’s really a shame, as the film shows plenty of potential. The problem becomes that they jam so many things into the final twenty minutes or so that the movie quickly loses much of the fun feeling the movie had. Also, it didn’t help that it threw in a cat-fight between two woman who are both virtually skinless, because that’s something that the audience definitely needed.

Technically, the special effects and make-up are fine, but toward the end of the film, they go way overboard. Some of the victims of this skin-eating disease appear far more like what you’d expect from zombies as opposed to actual people, so some restraint would have been preferred. Early on, things look fine, but it just strikes me as unrealistic where things apparently end up.

Not many of the performances really helped out. I sort of liked Mitch Ryan, Currie Graham (who I know from two series, House and Agent Carter), and Jillian Murray. Graham’s character rather annoyed me, but it was nice to see a familiar face. Murray provided an attractive character, but really, she doesn’t matter past the first thirty minutes or so. I wasn’t necessarily expecting more from Solly Duran, Sean Astin, or Lydia Hearst, but I was rather let-down by their performances.

Honestly, though, it’s the story that’s the biggest problem here. The plot twist they threw in at the end didn’t come close to wowing me, and past the fifty minute mark, I won’t pretend that I wasn’t rather shut of the whole thing, which again is a shame, as if any Cabin Fever movie had potential, it was this one. As such, it’s probably better than Spring Fever, but if it is, it’s not by a perceivable amount.

5/10