- Directed by Eli Roth
- Written by Eli Roth
- Stars Jordan Ladd, Rider Strong, James DaBello, Cerina Vincent
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wda8vC9j8vA
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Lots of gore and lots of humor. It follows a familiar formula of a group of attractive horny young people in an isolated location, and it’s a horror movie so you know bad things will happen. Who, if any, will survive? But it’s really well done.
Synopsis
We hear many flies having a frenzy as the credits roll. We return with a trapper carrying a rabbit and a snare. He brings the rabbit to his dog, but he finds that it’s dead. Not just dead, but rotted open.
We cut to annoying college kids in a pickup. Guess who’s going to die in this film? They all drive out to the country and stop at a general store, where there’s a creepy silent kid who bites Paul. “Everyone knows not to sit next to Dennis!” Shouts the proprietor.
Paul goes around back to wash his hand in the stream and runs into a couple of very friendly dogs. The old man inside is really friendly, but he warns them against going too deep into the woods. He’s super nice, and when he gets suddenly racist, it’s a bit of a shock.
There’s some debate on the washed-out road, but eventually, they get to the lonely, isolated cabin in the woods. It’s all very rustic, but it’s really nice inside.
Jeff and Marcy get to having sex straight away. Bert goes squirrel hunting. Paul and Karen go swimming in the lake; Paul gets to stay in the friend zone for a few more minutes.
Bert shoots the trapper by mistake, but the trapper is really sick and needs help. When the trapper advances on Bert, he shoots him again. That night at the campfire, Paul tells a story about a guy who murdered an entire bowling alley staff, one-by-one.
A guy and his dog come out of the woods and wants to share his weed with them. His name is Justin, but he goes by Grim, his “skating name.” Jeff and Bert challenge each other to only drink beer for the rest of the weekend.
Later that night, Jeff opens the door and finds the even-more-sick trapper out there. He points to Bert and says, “He shot me.” The trapper gets in their car and coughs up blood everywhere. Eventually, they set him on fire, and he runs away. That’s pretty much a downer for the rest of the evening.
The next morning, we see the dead trapper floating in the lake right next to the water supply intake for the cabin. Bert and Jeff walk for help while Marcy takes off walking in another direction. Paul and Karen are both still upset over last night’s disaster.
Bert and Jeff find a nearby farm where they see a woman beating the hell out of a suspended pig. The pig died from some kind of infection. They see cousin Henry’s photo on the counter; he’s the hermit/trapper they killed.
Marcy takes a canoe across the lake and finds a deserted farmhouse. Not deserted— Jeff and Bert are there eating all the people’s food.
Deputy Winston comes to the door and talks to Paul about what happened last night. He doesn’t even notice all the blood on the car— it’s literally dripping. Winston promises to get a mechanic up here to fix it in the morning.
Grim’s dog comes to the cabin without Grim. What might have happened to him? Karen hasn’t left her room all day, but we see her conspicuously drinking the water. Paul decides to make a move on the sleeping Karen, putting his hand down her pants. His hand comes up bloody and nasty, and so are her lower regions. Karen’s got whatever Henry the trapper had.
The four healthy people freak out over this horrible disease that Karen’s caught and make her move out into the nearby woodshed. Karen just wants to go home.
The next morning, Bert gets the Jeep running, but Karen is in no shape to move. They try anyway, but soon Bert starts coughing up blood, and so does Karen. Bert takes the truck and leaves the rest of them at the cabin.
Jeff, the germophobe, grabs a couple of cases of beer and marches off into the woods alone. Marcy says they’re all gonna die anyway, so she may as well have sex with Paul. Paul has no objections. We soon see that Marcy is infected.
Bert gets to the general store, and Dennis the biter does some martial arts moves while screaming, “Pancakes!” Then he bites Bert again. His father, the store’s owner, runs Bert off. His friends chase after Bert with guns blazing.
Paul accidentally goes swimming with the dead trapper’s badly decomposed body and notices the drinking water comes from there. Meanwhile, Marcy takes a bath and shaves her legs, which goes badly for her. She runs outside, covered in blood, and Grim’s dog tears her apart. Paul finds this and also checks in on Karen, who hasn’t died but would probably be better off if she had. He thinks so too, as he beats her to death with a pick.
The three armed men from the store track Bert back to the cabin. In the ensuing battle, everyone dies except Paul. He locks the one surviving gunman in the cellar and goes looking for Jeff. He finds about half of Grim in a cave and runs away.
Paul finds the shooter’s truck and drives away, which works well until he hits a very lively deer. He staggers out of the woods into one of Deputy Winston’s parties. Winston forgot all about the tow truck. The sheriff calls Winston and tells him to shoot the cabin kids on sight. Paul manages to cough up some nastiness on the partiers before they drive away.
Paul then tries to flag down a truck that takes him to the hospital. When he wakes up, the sheriff wants to know what happened. Paul rants about killing people, and the sheriff gets the wrong idea. They load him into Deputy Winston’s car, who promises to “take care of him.”
The next day, Jeff staggers out of wherever he’s been hiding and drinking beer. He’s still fine. He finds bits and pieces of people all over the cabin and grounds. “I made it,” he laughs as the whole police department shoots him full of holes. The sheriff and deputy are here to clean up the mess and keep it all quiet. They burn the bodies and the cabin.
Elsewhere, some kids fill a cooler from the local river to make lemonade for their stand— downstream of Paul’s rotted corpse. The police stop in at the general store, and we see who the rifle behind the counter was really meant for.
Commentary
The first half is a basic “Cabin in the woods” kind of story where we get to meet the main characters. Of course, things soon devolve into a real mess. The gore is really good, especially if you’re into body horror.
Deputy Winston is seriously weird. The general store people are all hilariously weird. Got a sick friend? Lock them in a shed. The harmonica guy is so far over the top it’s to take anything seriously after that part.
It’s really gross. It’s really funny.