The Birth of Fear
Directed by Kaare Andrews
Reviewed by the Devil Himself – Deep Red
Aka #cabin fever 3: Patient Zero
Stars Sean Astin (Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings) as Porter/Patient Zero.
A bachelor party on a deserted tropical island seems like a great idea, unless of course there happens to be flesh-eating virus there. That’ll wipe the smile off your wedding tackle.
This was all right actually. I enjoyed it. I’m a big fan of Cabin Fever (2002) directed by Eli Roth, I own it on Blu-ray, I haven’t seen the second one yet though.
The island setting is great and the filmmakers succeed in providing a decent atmosphere. It’s pretty gruesome as you’d expect. The effects are more than adequate and there some good ideas in there. The characters are neither annoying nor stand out particularly. It’s fairly good overall but it isn’t quite as classy as the original, I didn’t expect it to be. It’s definitely worth a watch unless you’re looking for something totally original in which case you’ll probably be disappointed. If all you’re looking for is a good horror film to pass the time you could a lot worse.
Apparently there was another film called Cabin Fever: Outbreak planned, to be filmed back-to-back with this one, but that was scrapped and now there’s a Cabin Fever remake on the cards; OK, sounds good, I’m looking forward to seeing the second one at the moment but I’m game.
Also stars Mitch Ryan as Marcus, Brando Eaton as Josh, Jillian Murray as Penny, Ryan Donowho as Dobbs, Currie Graham as Dr. Edwards, Solly Duran as Camila and Lydia Hearst as Bridgett.
Follow up review by Lead Cenobite
So I went into this with very little expectations despite really enjoying the first two. With expectations low I was extremely pleased with what I saw.
We have the usual assortment of characters but thankfully they mostly play against trope. Our hero (already against trope) has a loving supportive fiancée (against trope) who has helped arranged his secret bachelors party where his ex hits on him but is immediately rebuffed (against trope).
His brother plays the typical jock who it turns out is very supportive and does a damn good job of looking after his girlfriend though I doubt he would if he knew she just hit on his brother.
Thinking outside the box here or maybe Hollywood has become one big melting pot of tired and testing clichés that all anyone needs to do to seem original is have characters that while still tedious have some sort of moral backbone about them.
Other characters don’t fare so well, it seems the female scientist have been cast based on their waistlines. One in particular wears a very lowcut top that special mention should be made for her brassiere that manages to make more out of its supporting role than the actress does with hers.
The films does do a good job of throwing up a twist to the tale you probably won’t notice until the nice reveal that is told to very entertaining effect with a reverse action montage that spins everything you thought you knew about some of the main characters yet ties it up nicely.
Another way the film distances itself from the herd is with it’s main use of practical effects.
I love practical effects.
CGI is used but to compliment or when Practical wont cut it which is how it should be.
There is probably the most gory catfight you’ll ever see which ends in a way that fans of popular games series GTA will have a quiet chuckle to themselves when they see it.
In fact given that they are fans of GTA I doubt a quiet chuckle will suffice.
The real star of the film is Sean Astin, Mikey from The Goonies (1985) and Samwise Gamgee from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, who plays the titular character. Not much screentime but shows how likeable he is to watch.
Not perfect and is probably quite generic if it wasn’t for the practical effects and a bit of originality in the characters but it does what it needs to for a film that is after all about a flesh eating bug and how many times people can have large amount of blood thrown up on them.
Fans of the series show watch it.