In Defense of a Film Everyone Seems to Hate

Cabin Fever

This film doesn’t appear to be getting a good reception here at Listology, and I’m not really surprised. But I thought I’d share my thoughts about why I liked it.
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_I’m a big fan of films that play with genre conventions. Scream did it exceptionally well, and I think in general that horror movies rely so much on genre conventions for a kind of filmic shorthand with a savvy young audience, that they lend themselves well to experiments. This film turns many of the genre conventions on their heads. For example, in general slasher films turn to the non-virgins, drug users and partyers as their first victims. In this film, the people who stuck to only beer for the whole weekend were immune. In most slasher films, the really suspenseful moments come from seeing an oblivious victim stalked by an external predator. In this film, one of the most suspenseful moments comes from watching an oblivious victim about to mutilate herself (in a seriously disturbing scene which ruins shaving for me as a relaxing activity).
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Actually, after what I feel is a fairly strong start to my argument, I’m suddenly realizing that I’ve not seen the film in ages. I recall cataloguing the inversed genre conventions to my boyfriend at the time, but those two are all I can remember. Sorry, I’m crap.