You Are All Wrong

I don't understand you people. When I talk to you, and the conversation turns toward movies and I say, man...Donnie Darko. Pretty cool, huh? And you're like, shit yeah man! Donnie Darko is so cool! And THEN, I'm like, yeah so is Cabin Fever. And (almost) invariably your response is: Cabin Fever fucking sucked! That movie was so idiotic! How lame. Lame lame lame.

What the fuck? I'm not like this total idiot who jerks off to violent movies and stamps my approval on anything that has titties in it. I have discerning tastes I tells ya. I love Billy Madison, but admit that everything after Happy Gilmore is shit. So when I get really excited about something like Cabin Fever, why is the response so overwhelmingly negative? I'm not going to sit here and say stupid shit like, oh man, you just didn't GET it. You don't like that movie because, like, I'm sooo much better than you and it really said something and you're just blind man. Blind. Cuz, that's the beautiful thing about Cabin Fever. It has no redeeming cultural values. It's just geniusly retarded fun.

I mean, I remember when I saw the movie when it finally hit theaters last September and there was this little 15 year-old mall punk kid with a little 14 year-old blonde-Buffy girlie by his side (Alyson, if you even suggest that I was turned on by this little girl, I'm going to slap you), and the theater wouldn't sell him tickets to this film. He asked me to get the tickets for him because I looked like an upstanding dude who wouldn't just pocket his cash. And since I had FAITH in this movie, I actually didn't pocket it. I bought the tickets for this kid, knowing full well that the movie would probably pervert his silly little mind. That didn't matter, because this movie had the IT factor written all over it. I wasn't poisoning this child. I was his patron saint of awesomeness. I wasn't about to let that little shit down.

So, like totally 'n stuff, I was literally shaking after the movie ended. That's how awesome it was. I was giddy. I read Ain't It Cool and other loser websites, being the internet loser that I am, and I know people like Harry Knowles love to gizz all over little movies that no one else will ever get the chance to see, just to prove how cool he is. That's not what this is about. There was just something about Cabin Fever. It struck a chord. I remember getting kind of confused towards the middle, because I was really losing my grip on what the movie was about. I mean, yeah, it had its jokes and stuff, but then Deputy Winston shows up and starts calling Rider Strong the 'party guy', and then he rides off on his bicycle ringing its little bell. Things were spiraling out of control. It changed from a jokey teen-horror flick into something like David Lynch would write if he were hit on the head really, really hard. (Interestingly enough, the director Eli Roth was David Lynch's assistant for a while).

The final scene with the shop owner and his black patrons is when it all really clicked. In terms of being a straight ahead horror flick, Cabin Fever sucks. And it's too strange to be a conventional horror movie parody. But what it really succeeds at is fucking with your head. I mean, everyone loves Donnie Darko because it fucks with your head. If you say that you understood everything about Donnie Darko after just one viewing, you're either an idiot or a liar. It's a great film because it throws you for a loop. You really don't know what to expect next. For virtually all of its running time, it's actually a very slow movie. But then you get to the end and its like - what? Wow! All that stuff...wait a minute...I need to watch this again!

In that mind-fucking sense, CF is like DD's psychotic half-brother. Everything that happens after Deputy Winston's big scene just gets more and more twisted and fucked up. In another parallel, one of Eli Roth's next directorial projects is called The Box. It's based on an episode of The Twilight Zone. This updated version is being written by none other than Richard Kelly - the writer/director of DD. Anyway it's funny because Cabin Fever is about a flesh-eating virus, but basically no one actually dies from the virus during the movie. Someone gets burned alive, then drowns. Someone else is eaten by a rabid dog. Another guy gets a shotgun blast to the face. Each new scene brings something new that you couldn't have possibly predicted. Pancakes? You know what I'm talking about. It's got violent rednecks, harmonica choking's, finger-bang misfires, deer massacres, crazy banjo music, and the most disgusting shaving scene ever. It's even got a creepy giant rabbit. I ask you...what's NOT to love?

So then I'm walking out of the theater and I see that kid again. I ask him what he thought - believing he would express his eternal gratitude for getting him into the theater. But no. "That movie fucking sucked," he replied. It was only downhill from there. Later, people I knew who watched it, either said, "uhh, it was...ok." Or they gave me their honest opinion and said, "that movie fucking sucked!" Whatever. To each unto their own. Lucky for you, we live in a country where our opinions are protected by the Constitution. Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has a million of them.

I just rented Shaolin Soccer. I whole-heartedly recommend it. I give it two thumbs up your ass. I'm not the biggest fan of Asian cinema because a lot of the important details often don't translate well to my small-minded American sensibilities. But I laughed my ass off during Shaolin Soccer. It's just full of these little details that make it consistently funny. It's over-the-top and cartoonish, but not in an annoying way. There's just something great about seeing an over-the-hill, former Shaolin monk explode into a kung-fu fury - complete with a flaming backdrop. It's like Altered Beast, but with Chinese guys. It seemed that every scene had a hilarious and spectacular surprise in it.

But I kind of wonder if I recommend this movie to you, that you're going to react like you did when I convinced you to see Cabin Fever. It was such a sure thing, but you denied it. I dunno. Whatever. I still think you should see this movie. Maybe you'll just think its retarded. That's fine. You're probably the kind of person who thinks American Pie 2 was good stuff. So sad.

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