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[Butcher Block] Eli Roth’s Flesh-Eating Viral Frenzy ‘Cabin Fever’

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Eli Roth's Cabin Fever

Butcher Block is a weekly series celebrating horror’s most extreme films and the minds behind them. Dedicated to graphic gore and splatter, each week will explore the dark, the disturbed, and the depraved in horror, and the blood and guts involved. For the films that use special effects of gore as an art form, and the fans that revel in the carnage, this series is for you.

Three years before Eli Roth helped usher in the subgenre of horror dubbed “torture porn” with Hostel came his gory feature debut, Cabin Fever. For the group of five college graduate friends that embarked on a weekend getaway trip to a cabin in the woods, it wasn’t a demonic presence or masked maniac they had to contend with, but one gnarly virus that quickly escalates from minor skin rash to widespread aggressive decay. It also happens to be extremely contagious. The terrifying disease has catastrophic ramifications for the group in every possible way, from the physical to the social and psychological.

Roth wrote the script at age 22, while still in film school, based on his own gruesome experience with a mysterious skin infection at age 19 that left his skin coming off in bloody chunks when he scratched at it or shaved. Merging this life experience with a formative horror film, The Evil Dead, sparked the idea behind Cabin Fever. He gave an early draft to his college roommate expecting to terrify him, but he was perplexed to hear his roommate laughing instead. That roommate, Randy Pearlstein, wound up co-writing the script with Roth to deliver both scares and laughs.

The road to getting Cabin Fever made proved much more arduous and long. It took six years for Roth to find producers willing to take on what would be a sure R-rated bet. When he finally secured investors, the 2001 anthrax attacks featured prominently in the news made one of the film’s investors get cold feet and pull out of the project a mere 3 days into production. It was only the beginning of the constant financial struggle, often causing halts in production that would last months while Roth and team attempted to scrounge up more funds to continue.

Perhaps the biggest stroke of luck came from Roth’s previous working relationship with David Lynch, with whom he’d met while working on his NYU thesis film and handled research for a project of Lynch and composer Angelo Badalamenti. It was through Lynch that Roth landed the expert special makeup effects studio KNB EFX Group to handle the gore, rotting flesh, and free-flowing blood effects for Cabin Fever. With the core trio of Howard Berger, Robert Kurtzman, and Greg Nicotero as special makeup effects supervisors, and Garrett Immel as a key artist, it’s the gooey, grisly practical effects that elevated Cabin Fever into memorable horror that holds up over a decade later. The low budget meant that KNB EFX had to get creative with the makeup effects, and likely provided great experience with working on visceral gore on a small scale that would later come in handy when working on The Walking Dead.

After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Cabin Fever sparked a bidding war from investors, including some that’d previously passed on the film pre-production, and went on to become the highest grossing film released by Lionsgate in 2003. All of this to say that while Cabin Fever came before the “Torture Porn” craze, its success proved that R-rated horror could sell, and sell well. It helped pave the way for the brutal wave of horror that emerged in the early aughts.

Cabin Fever takes the cabin in the woods subgenre of horror and gives it an unflinching body horror twist. There are few things as more horrifying as being a stranger in your own skin, especially when it involves a disease that rapidly progresses from benign rash to oozing ulcers to necrotic tissue sloughing off with the barest of touch, all in the span of hours. The concept alone can induce nightmares, but thanks to the uncanny talents of KNB EFX Group, these nightmares were brought to life in a visually traumatic way.

Horror journalist, RT Top Critic, and Critics Choice Association member. Co-Host of the Bloody Disgusting Podcast. Has appeared on PBS series' Monstrum, served on the SXSW Midnighter shorts jury, and moderated horror panels for WonderCon and SeriesFest.

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

LEPRECHAUN

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

LEPRECHAUN RETURNS sequel

Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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