Cabin Fever: Patient Zero [Blu-Ray]
Director: Kaare Andrews
Cast: Sean Astin, Currie Graham, Ryan Donowho
Release Date: Now Available on Blu-Ray & DVD
A Review By: Kevin Lovell
Film Rating: 6.5/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10
Plot Summary:
When a group of friends enjoying a bachelor cruise in the Caribbean stumble upon a research facility on a remote island, a deadly virus is unleashed. The group must find a way to survive before the flesh eating virus consumes them all.
‘Cabin Fever: Patient Zero’ takes place prior to the events in the other ‘Cabin Fever’ films, serving as a prequel. Upon discovering an outbreak that has killed everyone, aside from one lone survivor who has been miraculously unaffected, a team of scientists take captive the survivor, also known as Patient Zero. They begin performing a number of tests on him, apparently in order to try and develop a way to counteract this mysterious flesh eating virus when things go wrong and the lab is shut down for 48 hours as a means of extra precaution after a potential outbreak occurs within. Meanwhile a group of friends out on the water for a last minute bachelor party end up on the beach below and after a couple of them begin suffering from the virus, they find their way to the seemingly abandoned facility in the hope of finding some assistance or answers.
This time around, the director’s chair is occupied by Kaare Andrews, probably best known for his 2010 film Altitude and for contributing a segment to ‘The ABC’s Of Death’ (“V is for Vagitus”) as well. He does a decent job as director and things seem pretty well handled in that area. The script is penned by Jake Wade Wall who wrote the film Amusement which I absolutely loved and he provides a decent script, but nothing nearly as exceptional as Amusement. The cast is composed of mostly unknown’s, the majority of which are pretty decent in their respective roles, but far from outstanding. The one exception to the unknown cast members is that of Sean Astin who portrays Patient Zero and also easily delivers the best performance of the film.
‘Cabin Fever: Patient Zero’ is a decent prequel to the series and while it may not hold up with Eli Roth’s original, it keeps true to the bloody nature of his film. It doesn’t deliver too much in the way of impressive performances or originality; nevertheless, it is a pretty entertaining film. The main reason horror fans will want to check this one out will be for the gore. While I have yet to see the second entry in the series, the bloodshed and gore easily goes significantly above and beyond that of the original, delving into some truly gnarly moments. It is certainly not the best entry in the franchise so far, but it holds up for the most part and more than holds up when it comes to the gore, therefore most fans of the series will surely at least want to give this one a watch.
VIDEO:
The Blu-Ray release of ‘Cabin Fever: Patient Zero’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 2.40:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks pretty decent overall aside from some of the scenes being so incredibly dark that it becomes a bit difficult to decipher what is happening at times, yet this is more likely due to how it was filmed as opposed to a bad transfer. Otherwise it looks pretty great with rich colors and sharp detail.
AUDIO:
The Blu-Ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This lossless soundtrack sounds pretty decent and definitely gets amped up at times, but the surround channels are mostly dedicated to the bleed of nature effects and lab background noise. Nevertheless it sounds pretty solid overall for what it is, a nice discrete DTS-HD MA track that definitely compliments the overall viewing experience of the movie.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Unfortunately, the Blu-Ray release of ‘Cabin Fever: Patient Zero’ doesn’t contain any bonus content, the one area the release is lacking.
*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.