Home Video
Blu-ray Review: ‘Cabin Fever: Director’s Cut’
Now on high-def Blu-ray everywhere is Eli Roth’s breakthrough indie genre pic, Cabin Fever, which is presented as a “Director’s Cut” featuring footage only seen at the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival years ago. In the film a group of five college graduates rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a horrifying flesh-eating virus, which attracts the unwanted attention of the homicidal locals.
The Film
8 out of 10
Not unlike Rob Zombie, writer/director, Eli Roth is another one of those filmmakers I find myself constantly having to defend. At first, I must admit to pigeonholing this extremely confident (the word still feels like an understatement when linked to Mr. Roth) filmmaker and his debut feature, Cabin Fever as mere overhype. In the past, genre fans have been too quick to label every other horror film as the next Evil Dead or Dead Alive (aka Braindead). Of course, this was simply blasphemous to my ears so I stubbornly stayed locked on skeptic mode. I eventually warmed up to Eli Roth’s trademark blend of horror and dark comedy. While this juggling act is not uncommon in genre cinema, Roth boldly juxtapositions these elements from one scene to the next, quite abruptly. It’s can be a turn off to some viewers desiring their horror straight up. In my opinion, it’s what makes Roth’s work so memorable.
Cabin Fever is a prime example. It’s both wickedly funny and unnerving to watch. Roth could have simply served up made a straightforward survival horror picture examining the disintegration of friendship. It certainly works on that level. Roth seems equally as interested in entertaining the crap out of an audience with his twisted sense of humor and gross out gags. Eli can’t be trusted in playing a by-the-numbers game. These attributes make Cabin Fever so compulsively watchable. It can be enjoyed on many different levels.
Blu-Ray users are in for a treat with the exclusive Cabin Fever: Director’s Cut. It’s actually the first cut which was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival before Lionsgate picked it up. The running time has only been extended by six minutes of fresh character moments. These nuances somehow manage to enhance the film. The characters are fleshed out and the tone feels more decisive. There are also some slight moments of additional gore which definitely doesn’t hurt. The director’s cut subtle additions make the final product flow all the better. The definitive version of this killer debut feature.
Video
8 out of 10
Cabin Fever’s MPEG-4 AVC 1080p transfer is another winner from Lionsgate. This clean 2.40:1 presentation contains a nice level of detail. One can definitely appreciate KNB’s make-up effects all the more now. There are though some occasions where the image can get a little soft though. The colors are the most noticeable improvement from the previous DVD release. The outdoor environments are beautifully vibrant throughout. Black levels are consistently deep. Grain is present but nowhere near as noticeable as it one might expect. Scott Kevan’s gorgeous cinematography really shines on this release.
Audio
8 out of 10
Never in a million years would I expect Cabin Fever’s 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio to wow me as much as it did. For the most part, the sound design sticks to the front three speakers. The sound effects hit the mark and the dialogue is consistently audible. On occasion, the sound reaches the rear channels especially the effective echo in the cave sequence. What makes this mix a standout though, is Nathan Barr and Angelo Badalmenti’s haunting score. I was lucky to catch the film’s first screening at TIFF and while it was effective, it never engulfed me like it does on this blu-ray. The music is relentlessly immersive. The score and sound design during the opening credits is especially chilling. It all makes for one intense experience.
Supplements
7 out of 10
Accompanying the director’s cut is a brand new audio commentary with Eli Roth and cast members, Rider Strong, Jordan Ladd, Cerina Vincent and Joey Kern. If you trooped through all five commentaries from the DVD release, you probably got all the info you can possibly get about the making of Cabin Fever. There aren’t a whole lot of new insights that could possibly be said about the film. The commentary still manages to be worth the listen. First off, the previous tracks were recorded before Cabin Fever was released to the masses. So for the most part, the participants reflect on the film’s success as well as, its criticisms. There’s of course, the typical patting of each other’s backs that you get on most group commentaries. Roth gets into the differences between the two cuts. It’s worth noting there is an abrupt moment of silence early on (that never happens in an Eli Roth commentary) which sounds like a piece of their conversation was edited out. Very interesting, indeed. Overall, it’s a lively, often humorous track.
Aside from two additional shorts of The Rotten Fruit, Postcards from Bunyon County photo gallery (2:32), and the Theatrical Trailer (1:29), most of the features have been ported over from the DVD. It includes, the short but funny, Family-Friendly Version (1:13); five episodes of the delightfully twisted, Director’s Shorts: The Rotten Fruit (18:26); Pancakes! (1:46), Matthew Helms aka creepy, young Dennis’ martial arts demonstration; Beneath the Skin: The Making of Cabin Fever (28:57), an above-average featurette which includes the hilarious segment on their issues with their dog cast member.
The only disappointment is Lionsgate’s failure to carry-over the theatrical cut and all five commentaries. Oh, as well as, the brilliant Chick-Vision feature! Travesty, I tell ya!
Final Thoughts
8 out of 10
Cabin Fever devotees shouldn’t hesitate to pick up this Blu-Ray. It sports the finest A/V presentation of the film to date, accompanied by another engaging commentary track by Eli Roth and the principal cast. While the additional six minutes of new footage in the director’s cut won’t sway haters, it’ll no doubt delight fans who want even more of Roth’s offbeat humor and creepy factor. The new footage subtly enhances Cabin Fever to even greater heights of twisted pleasure.
Night School, director Ken Hughes and writer Ruth Avergon‘s tale of a headhunting slasher on the streets of Boston, arrived in the early Golden Age of the slasher film and never quite broke through the endurance test that other films in the subgenre, like Friday the 13th, managed to pass with flying colors. Blame it on a more cerebral tone, a crowded market, whatever you like, but saying it’s a shame that the film didn’t break through doesn’t begin to cover it.
Night School isn’t just an underrated slasher, or an underseen one. For my money, it’s one of the best films the subgenre has ever produced, full stop, and Vinegar Syndrome’s new 4K UHD restoration, arriving just in time for the film’s 45th anniversary, is must-have proof. Stacked with special features highlighting the craft of the film and its place in slasher history, and headlined by a gorgeous restoration showcasing the wonderfully textured production, this is Night School as it’s meant to be seen for slasher devotees everywhere.
So, what makes the film so effective? It starts very simply, with the revelation that a killer with a very cool knife and a motorcycle helmet as a mask is murdering young women in Boston, taking off their heads, and dropping those heads in the nearest body of water (no matter how small).
Solving the case falls on Judd Austin (Leonard Mann), a detective with an academic background who traces all of the victims in one way or another back to a local night school. There, suspicion falls on a womanizing professor (Drew Snyder) who sleeps around on his research assistant and romantic partner, Eleanor (Rachel Ward), whose own death could be right around the corner.
I’m doing my best to stay as spoiler-free as possible here, not just because I think plenty of slasher fans still need to see Night School, but because the film is quite determined to be a whodunit in the classic Italian giallo sense. The kills are brutal and elaborate, the killer deliberately covered head-to-toe in leather and a gleaming black helmet, the knife and the headhunting a disturbing signature. Avergon’s script is well-versed in the trappings of exactly this kind of story, complete with red herrings galore. And yet, by the time it’s all wrapping up, there’s also the sense that the answer was right there in front of you the entire time, something the very best films by legends like Mario Bava and Dario Argento could also achieve.
But on to the restoration: Like the best of the gialli, Night School is also a beautifully engineered film full of colors and delicate camera compositions and sound design. The opening kill, which takes place on a playground carousel outside of a daycare, is rich in exactly this kind of thing, from the cityscapes that lead into the scene to the sound of a motorcycle slowly rolling forward, its engine already dead. Cinematographer Mark Irwin, best known for his many collaborations with David Cronenberg, paints the film in rich reds, absinthe greens, and haunting, chilled blue-white light on wet Boston streets, all of which are preserved beautifully by the restoration team at work on this one.
It’s a movie that very deliberately evokes a specific place – the aging streets of Boston in the 1980s, and the halls of relatively low-level academia – and then takes that place into haunted territory, saturating every frame with color and shadow that suggests a killer lurking just out of view.
Night School is not a massively gore-heavy film, but it does deliver the slasher goods with a series of tense, often unpredictable kills and body discoveries that range from the darkly comic to the flat-out jaw-dropping. That’s thanks to the sound design, the score, the editing from Robert Reitano, and more, all of which add to the film’s giallo soul.
In every case, the scene’s geography is outstanding, and it’s easy to see where the simplest possible kill shot might land, but the film never goes for the obvious. Throw in a surprisingly (for 1981, anyway) feminist bent to the storytelling and some very progressive moments for an early slasher film, and this one fits right in with Black Christmas and The Slumber Party Massacre as a film with depth you can just keep unpacking.
That depth, helped along by a load of featurettes and two new commentary tracks featuring members of the crew, is what stands out the most in this new 4K set. Night School may be a niche film recognized mostly by horror addicts and the slasher faithful, but it deserves to be something more, a landmark on the roadmap of slasher cinema history. It’s one of the best in the genre, and this restoration highlights, underlines, and shouts that from the rooftops.
Night School is now available in 4K UHD from Vinegar Syndrome.
You must be logged in to post a comment.