Cabin Fever: Beneath the Skin (2004) (V)

Director:

Gabriel Roth

Genre:

Documentary | Short

Cast

Arie Verveen	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Evan Astrowsky	...	Himself
Angelo Badalamenti	...	Himself
Nathan Barr	...	Himself
Franco-Giacomo Carbone	...	Himself (as Franco Carbone)
James DeBello	...	Himself
Tommy Estridge	...	Himself
Sam Froelich	...	Himself
Joey Kern	...	Himself
Scott Kevan	...	Himself
Jordan Ladd	...	Herself
Richard A. Mazzochi	...	Himself (as Richard Mazzochi)
Lauren Moews	...	Herself
Cora Roth	...	Herself
Eli Roth	...	Himself
Sheldon Roth	...	Himself (as Dr. Sheldon Roth)
Rider Strong	...	Himself
Cerina Vincent	...	Herself

Runtime:

29 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Company:

Lions Gate Films Home Entertainment

Trivia:

This documentary is featured on the DVD for Cabin Fever (2002), released January 2004.

Movie Connections:

References Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Soundtrack:

We're Makin' Movies

A little bit self-congratulatory but has moments of interest

The cast and crew take time during and after the making of the film Cabin Fever to discuss how it came about, how the cast were arrived upon, how the effects were done (and the problems they encountered) and how Roth worked the shots and worked with the actors to develop the characters. Also the problems they encountered when they cast a fat, arthritic and friendly dog to play the part of an angry, diseased dog.

When you find that this film was directed by Roth's brother and that Roth himself is presenting it, you begin to get the feeling that this may not be a 'warts and all', open expose of the making process. In that regard the film is rather weak as it has a little too much in the way of back slapping between the cast and thee director. However, that said, the film still manages to come off as quite fun to watch and also reasonably interesting too. The film breaks the 30 minute runtime down into small chunks about various elements of the making process – some are interesting and some aren't. The background to Roth and the rather smug speech at the Toronto Film Festival are both low points but the stuff about the problems (the dog and the frozen blood) are both interesting. I was also interesting to see the cast getting made up and chatting onset – they all came across as nice people and displayed more personality than they each did in the actual movie!

One bit made me laugh out loud and that was Roth acknowledging that people had told him not to do the deer hit scene (I agreed with them) but his rational is that 'if they're still watching after an hour then they won't care….', not the most sound argument I've heard for a scene that is so silly that it almost threatens to derail the film when it should be at it's strongest! The contributions are mostly just chatter rather than insightful anecdotes but what they lack in real interest, they make up for in terms of fun.

Overall this is a nice addition to the film that is reasonably interesting but, even when it isn't, it still manages to be fun. Roth is an interesting person and my only problem with the movie was that he came off rather smug and starting to fill with his own self-importance – if he gets to direct more films I hope he can keep his feet on the ground.