Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009)

Hmmm, it's a difficult decision to stand by my rating for this movie but I will anyway. As always.

I've found out all about the interference that led to director Ti West telling people it wasn't what he envisioned (although he did stand by it at screenings, admirably), I've also discovered that two other drafts were discarded (one by Eli Roth and one by Adam Green) for reasons probably only ever to make sense to some executives somewhere. Despite knowing these things, and despite hearing a lot of negative reviews in advance of my own viewing of this movie, I liked what I saw. More to the point, I'm baffled as to how fans of the first movie can loathe this fun sequel so as much as they seem to.

The storyline follows on almost immediately from the events of the first movie with the main plot point concerning a lorry load of contaminated water making a delivery at a high school that's due to have its prom night dance. High school dances and flesh-eating viruses never make for comfortable bedfellows and things quickly get a hell of a lot worse once they start going bad.

Okay, so the script has a lot of sub-standard teen comedy moments in it. And, yes, the acting could have been much better although I can only assume that most fans enjoyed Giuseppe Andrews' performance a lot more than I did and should be pleased to see his return. And at least Noah Segan (so good in Deadgirl) turns in another solid performance even if nobody else stands out (Alexi Wasser was cute and likable enough though).

Despite its many flaws, this film is a lot of fun. It grossed me out, it made me laugh, it had me willing dumb characters not to be quite so dumb, it did it's job, in my book. The animated intro and outro was a fun little addition, introducing any newcomers to the situation and then adding a sense of scale at the end. The gloopy effects were . . . . gloopy. The whole thing was a big bundle of illogicality wrapped up in entrails and fake blood. I don't know what everyone was expecting but I got just the silly enjoyment I wanted from things.

See this if you like: Cabin Fever, The Crazies, The Stuff.