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Roth frequently pokes
fun of the stupidity that infects many of the teenage characters that populate
these types of movies. Instead of telling the cops the truth about
the man and their part in his death, the kids decide to cover up their
crime. Instead of leaving the cabin as soon as the virus infects
one of their group, they stay. Like the teens in many horror flicks,
the kids don’t do what they should do (leave the cabin immediately!), and
ultimately pay the price for it. It’s also interesting to see how
the kids completely misread the townsfolk they meet at the beginning of
the film. They misunderstand the old man in the shop, who they assume
to be a redneck bigot. They treat the other locals with contempt
and sarcasm, and they refuse to help the infected man, who may have been
saved if they had simply taken him to a doctor. Roth’s film often
vacillates between moments of quietly effective gruesomeness (an infected
girl - Cerina Vincent - senselessly shaving her rotting legs) to scenes
of bizarre humour (a local boy - Matthew Helms - who bites strangers and,
at one point, starts performing some inexplicable kung fu moves!).
However, Roth doesn’t just ape the horror movies he loves. His characters,
like their teen horror antecedents, may be two dimensional creations and
caricatures, but we do at least empathise with them, even if some of the
humour is at their expense. Although funny, I would have liked to
have seen the film aim for some more chilling, truly terrifying moments,
which would have required a more serious tone. That said, this is
still an enjoyable debut horror flick and it’ll be interesting to see if
Roth can come up with something that really is scary next time.
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