Eli Roth says he was “blown away” by the Cabin Fever reboot

In 2002, CABIN FEVER was released in theaters and heralded the arrival of Eli Roth. While his films have enjoyed varying levels of success over the years, few can argue with the fun, over the top presence of his feature directorial debut. Now, with a full scene for scene remake of CABIN FEVER completed, Eli Roth has come full circle.

You may be saying to yourself that scene for scene remakes are not typically a good idea, but there is one person who has recently seen the movie that would disagree with you. That person is Roth himself. In an interview about his latest producing effort, CLOWN, Roth was asked about the CABIN FEVER remake and this is what he had to say.

“It’s great. And I’m saying that honestly. I saw it and I was blown away. I couldn’t believe it. Travis Zariwny the director did a fantastic job. They came to me exactly a year ago and said ‘We want to remake Cabin Fever using your original script.’ You’ve got to realise that from an egotistical point-of-view I wrote Cabin Fever when I was 22-years-old. Right out of university. And for six years everyone told me ‘This is an un-makeable piece of shit.’ So the fact that the same script would get made twice and that 20 years later, 20 years after I originally wrote it, it got sent around Hollywood and people were reading the same dialogue. I looked at it as like staging a play – as an experiment I just wanted to see how it would turn out. So I came on as one of the executive producers – I was actually shooting “South of Hell,” the TV show, so I was unable to be there during the shoot. I saw the cut and thought that what Travis did was so smart – he kept the original script, but he changed the deaths, so all the kills are different… You don’t know how they’re going to come. I was watching it, and he didn’t tell me that he did that and I was so happy he did – because nobody wants to see a re-do that’s the same thing that they already know. So he leads you in one direction, with the audience thinking that the know what’s coming, then puts a fantastic spin on it.”

“And it looks awesome – it’s a really fun movie. I’m happily surprised at how it’s turned out.”

The new CABIN FEVER boasts a cast of relative unknowns but follows the exact same plot as the original: a group of college friends take a trip to a cabin where they fall prey to a flesh eating virus. The fact that the kills are different is a nice twist, but is that enough to warrant watching the movie a second time around? And, more importantly, is the pancake scene still intact?

The new CABIN FEVER stars Gage Golightly, Dustin Ingram, Samuel Davis, Matthew Daddario and Nadine Crocker. It currently has no release date, much like Roth’s delayed THE GREEN INFERNO, but expect it to hit sometime in 2015.