Cabin Fever: Patient Zero (2014) Review:

"Sometimes it's necessary to harm one to save millions."

-Dr. Edwards

Serving as a prequel to the first two films, Cabin Fever: Patient Zero follows Porter (Sean Astin), who is the sole survivor of an outbreak of the disease in the Dominican Republic.  Porter is infected with the virus, but is immune to the symptoms.  He is brought to a medical lab run by Dr. Edwards (Currie Graham) located on a deserted island.  They run experiments on Porter hoping to find a cure, but Porter is desperate to escape.  At the same time, a group of friends arrive on the island to celebrate Marcus' (Mitch Ryan) bachelor party, but they are about to discover the lab isn't as secure as it should be.

What Works:

I really was not a fan of the first two movies, and while I didn't love this one, Patient Zero is my favorite of the first three films.  The first two films had extremely unlikable characters and no one to root for, but Patient Zero has two likable characters.  First we have Porter, who is played by Sean Astin who was in The Goonies, The Lord of the Rings, and Stranger Things.  He is by far the most well known actor to have appeared in this series and I was shocked to discover he was in this film.  Astin is a great actor, and although he doesn't get a ton to do here, he gives a solid performance, particularly in the first half of the film, where he is locked in quarantine the entire time.  We get this guy's motivation and for most of the film we are rooting for him to find a way out.

Our main protagonist is Marcus and he actually seems like a pretty likable guy.  He's nice and caring, but a bit uptight.  He has some personal conflict apart from the virus plot and I was actually interested in it.  I hated the protagonists from the previous films, but I was hoping Marcus would survive which made me more invested in the film.

The gore is the big selling point for this series and once again we get some solid and disgusting kills.  A few of them are really over-the-top, but I enjoyed how insane they were.  We get a brutal fight between two people that are basically melting due to the virus, which ends with one person getting a sex toy shoved through their face.  I never realized I wanted to see that happen, but I'm very glad it did..


What Sucks:

The story itself isn't all that interesting.  The bachelor party plotline is fine and I liked watching their situation gets worse and worse, but once the two stories combine, it all becomes extremely generic and not that interesting.  It becomes more of a thriller with everyone betraying each other, but most of the characters aren't well written enough for that to work.

Apart from Porter and Marcus, the rest of the characters suck.  Marcus' friends are all pretty terrible people.  They are constantly badmouthing his fiancé, who is portrayed as nothing but pleasant, if a bit uptight.  And the scientists experimenting on Porter on either generically evil or completely uninteresting.

There is also some pretty bad acting, mostly from the scientists.  Worst of all is Solly Durhan who plays the last scientist standing.  Every line of dialogue out of her mouth falls flat.  Is she really the best person they could get for the role?  If so, that's pretty pathetic.


Verdict: 

Cabin Fever: Patient Zero is an improvement over the first two films because the two main characters are actually likable or interesting, if not both.  It also has some solid, over-the-top gore, but the story is pretty generic, the supporting characters suck, and there is some pretty bad acting.  It may be the best of the first three Cabin Fever films, but it's still not really worth your time.

 5/10: Meh