What can fans expect from "Cabin Fever?"
It’s going to kick ass. It’s awesome. It’s just like a great horror film. It’s right out of the pages of an old horror film. People are freaking out on the Internet - like all the horror guys are freaking out, a lot of them have seen it. Eli [Roth] the director and writer – he’s nuts. Initially I think the horror fans are going to go crazy. They already are.
I think on a bigger scale, it’s really funny and it’s scary. Those kind of movies are doing really well right now. I hope it does well because bottom line, it’s a really, really entertaining movie. I think people will dig it.
Is the release of quite a few horror movies at about the same time as "Cabin Fever" going to help it or hurt it?
I think that "28 Days Later" is going to help it. It’s a different kind of movie than that but it’s of the same kind of genre. "Freddy vs Jason" – it is what it is. "Cabin Fever" is a small independent movie that’s just turned out to be really good.
To what do you attribute the positive pre-release buzz surrounding "Cabin Fever?"
I think a lot of that buzz is just from watching it, you know? A lot of movies get buzz for whatever reasons, like people dropping names, etc.
Can you talk about the make-up and effects in “Cabin Fever?”
I don't know if you saw the cover of Fangoria but that girl’s really pretty – it’s Jordan Ladd. The make-up – I didn’t do too much personally. I won’t ruin it but I have like bullet holes. We won at Sitges, the film festival in Spain, it’s one of the major horror festivals – we won the make-up award, make-up and special effects. But it’s not digital at all, it’s all make-up.
What’s the basic story?
It’s about 5 college kids who go to the woods for the end of school. There’s a virus – it’s a real life virus, a flesh-eating virus – and it’s in the woods and basically it gets into the water. It’s in the woods, and one by one they start to turn on each other. There [aren't any] zombies; nobody turns into a zombie. There’s no killer. We all just turn on each other and we’re all just trying to survive. We start to like – it’s really realistic in this way – we start to like, “Well, you’re sick. Maybe we should put you here.” And like, “Don’t talk to her.” We just turn on each other. It’s creepy in that way.
Was there a weird vibe on the set?
No, not at all it. It was a lot of fun. It was awesome. I went to the hospital like four times for different eye injuries. I had a window splinter in my face, I had an allergic reaction to the medicine they gave me. I had an allergic reaction to the blood drops they put in my eyes. And then when I was all better I was doing this scene and I ran out and this piece of wood hit me in the face and cut my eye and gave me a huge black eye. You'll see in the movie, there's a lot of scenes where I'm [in profile]. I had this handkerchief that I was using anyway [in front of my nose], SARS is around here anyway, so I use this handkercheif. There are some parts in the movie where I use it like this [indicating covering one eye and his nose].
Did you feel jinxed?
On that movie set I did. I don't know, it was just weird like that, but it was awesome. I could have had any excuse to leave. It was like a low-budget movie like that and I [went] to the hospital four times. My manager and my agent said, "Get the f**k out of there. What are you doing?" I was like, "No, I'm loving it here. I'm having a great time."
Interview with "Cabin Fever" writer/director Eli Roth
