This pointless reboot of the Cabin Fever franchise serves no purpose whatsoever apart from making a few cruddy shekels, as very little of value has changed since the original. Furthermore, most of the offbeat humor that was present in the first film is disappointingly missing from this comparatively straight-faced and innocuous remake. Most disappointingly, Deputy Winston, the inscrutable party guy played by Giuseppe Andrews in the 2002 version has been replaced by a scar-faced bisexual deputy played by Louise Linton. Curiously, like the first film, Cabin Fever ’16 also fails to exploit the comedic potential latent in the suggested premise of whether or not a character could survive a horror movie while only subsisting on beer. The leg-shaving scene is perhaps more horrific than in Eli Roth’s original; but, throw in a generic cast and some unappealing tattoos on one of the women, and what the viewer has is a passable but decidedly underachieving horror outing.

3 out of 5 stars. Ideological Content Analysis indicates that Cabin Fever is:

4. Luddite! One vacationer mistakes his video game experience for “years of training” for the handling of a firearm. Karen (Gage Golightly), preoccupied by her cell phone, has to be reminded to enjoy the outdoors.

3. Anti-gay, furnishing publicity for an abnormal lifestyle but presenting a comically grotesque example of a lesbian in law enforcement.

2. Anti-redneck (i.e., anti-white), offering the typically creepy depictions of backwoods European-Americans. The film fails to reference any other races’ parasitic roles in the world economy, but does refer to “hillbilly vampires”. One rustic local is dubbed “Deliverance”. A faded American flag visible at the rednecks’ dilapidated gas station would seem to connect white trash with the idea of America’s decline – possibly in connection with supposed wars for oil.

1. Anti-gun. Bert (Dustin Ingram), the least mature of the vacationers, brings an “assault rifle” and accidentally shoots a man.

Rainer Chlodwig von K.