- Directed by Ti West
- Written by Joshua Malkin, Randy Pearlstein, Ti West
- Stars Rider Strong, Noah Segan, Alexi Wasser, Rusty Kelley
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 26 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RDQawZYUU8
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s said that Ti West disavowed this work because of heavy corruption by the producers, ending up with a movie he didn’t have in mind. That would explain it, because he’s done some other good things. This was a disappointing slog after how good the first Cabin Fever was. It takes quite a long time to get to some horror. There are some good moments after that, but it’s too little too late.
Synopsis
Paul, from the first film, wakes up in the river. His face is half melted off, but he’s not dead. He walks past the “Down Home Water” plant pumping water from the lake. He staggers through the woods, leaving a trail of gore behind him. He walks into the highway to flag down help and goes, “splat!” When a school bus hits him. Credits roll.
Deputy Winston takes the statement from the school bus driver. Winston says it was a moose, not a man. He jumps when a “Down Home Water” truck buzzes by. We get an animation of the truck driving to the bottling plant as the rest of the credits roll.
John and his friend Alex walk through the high school and talk about Sandy, the hot girl. John soon ends up in the principal’s office. Later, Alex consoles a girl who got dumped, and she gives him a blow job, which is great except for her braces. OW! At the last minute, John asks Cassie to the prom, which is in five hours. She declines.
At the diner, Winston eats pancakes while the water truck driver has a seizure. He ends up spraying blood everywhere. Winston hops in the car and figures out the water connection. He goes to the bottling plant and checks the paperwork. Then the health department breaks in the door and kills the night watchman, and Winston runs away.
Everyone gets ready for the prom, and many of them are drinking the water as they prepare. Alex peels off his fingernail. Rick and Federica go skinny-dipping in the school pool, but she starts to dissolve in the pool and Rick dies in his attempt to save her. The janitor bloody-pees in the punch bowl.
Sandy screams at the principal that she can’t find Rick. Marc and John get into another fight. John and Cassie then clear the air between them. The men with the guns and hazmat suits show up and demand they go back inside the high school. Then the men in the vans chain the doors shut and shoot the principal.
Back inside the prom, things start getting really bloody, really fast. Outside, Winston calls a friend to drive him out of town.
The soldiers, or whoever they are, wander the halls, killing infected people one at a time while gassing the main prom crowd. Alex finds a book in the library that discusses flesh-eating bacteria, but it’s too late to save him. Cassie watches Marc beat a man to death with a fire extinguisher.
John notices that his hand is infected, so he goes to the wood shop and asks Cassie to cut it off with a table saw. She does it, spraying them both with blood. Cassie then burns the wound and seals it with duct tape. Mark sneaks in and hits her in the head with a hammer, but before he can kill John, she gets Marc with a nail gun.
John and Cassie make it out the back door and into the woods. John is captured, but Cassie escapes.
She makes it to the road to flag down a car, but it’s Winston and his buddy. They let her into the car, and they drive on, getting out of town, even though we know she’s infected…
At the town’s strip club, “braces girl” shares her bloody lipstick with the other performers. Several of the guys in the audience think she looks like a high school student. She then has sex with the patrons. We then get another animated bit showing how the disease spreads.
Commentary
Ti West disavowed having anything to do with this film, asking them to give him an “Alan Smithee” credit, which they refused. It’s really obvious why he wanted his name removed. This is pretty awful.
It really amps up the humor to the point there’s more humor than horror here. There’s a lot of really bad teen angst here on top of the overly-talky first half. The blood and gore here are excessive but not particularly innovative or even good.