When a group of friends decide to take their bachelor party to a remote Caribbean island, they stumble upon a research facility – one that contains a deadly virus. The micro-organism is unleashed on those in the complex and outside on the small island. All of them must find a way off the island in order to survive before the flesh eating virus consumes them.
From the Eli Roth directed original Cabin Fever, that was an enjoyable horror romp, via the absolute stinker of Cabin Fever 2 (Ti West directed it but asked for his name removed after it was taken away from him), we finally find ourselves at Cabin Fever 3: Patient Zero. Unsurprisingly, when trying to stay away from a terrible previous edition in the franchise, the film makers have decided to give us a prequel to the initial movie – Telling us how the virus came to be.
Patient Zero is, rather strangely, split into two different stories. On one hand we have a group of people out on a bachelor party (But a female is along for the ride as well) enjoying beer and sex and some of the puff puff. On the other, we are pushed straight inside the contamination unit at the research facility, where we follow the trials and tribulations of a team trying to understand how someone can be a carrier but not have taken on the virus. Both stories are rather weak in their telling of events and when the editing see’s the two stories cut between each other it becomes even more annoying as to what we are watching.
The ‘lads-on-the-drink’ bit is everything you expect to see in a clichéd low budget horror film. None of it is interesting or indeed frightful. There are a couple of enjoyable blood soaked moments, but it never kicks on from there to delve deeper into goriness. Switch to the quarantine facility storyline and there is something vaguely interesting happening, as we start to discover how and why the virus came to be.
Sean Astin is the best of the actors and actually helps lift it above the typical woeful acting. The problem arises when he is given too little screen time. Instead, most of the face time belongs to a buxom female with a very low cut top who has a clipboard and does a lot of inept shouting. As to be expected, the lovely lady does have a mishap to her white blouse and a couple of items are on display. This sinks the film back to its inability to come out of the horror cliché zone. The rest of the acting is seriously poor and of a standard that only promotes their wooden acting.
Cabin Fever 3 – Patient Zero offers nothing new for an alternate take on the storyline. The smattering of gore is nice and bloody, but with the film being an amalgamation of two different stories, neither of them actually connected with us. Sure it’s a step up from part 2, and the story keeps on rolling but this edition of the franchise lacked the killer bite to push it beyond your typical prequel/sequel.
