I have been a horror movie fanatic for as long as I can remember. Films like Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, John Carpenter's The Thing, and Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street were made with uncompromising terror, and pushed my childhood imagination into dark corners I never knew existed. I aspired to make a horror film that would have a resonating scare, one that would stay with the audience long after they left the theater.
Around the mid-80's, my favorite horror directors "graduated" into big studio movies, the new horror films were made with less care and craft, and a genre that once fueled the movie industry came to a grinding halt. At the end of the 1970's, horror films were written around the basic premise: what is horrifying? By the end of the 1980's, horror films were written around the premise: how can we kill this group of kids?
I set out to make a film that would be a throwback to the late 70's/early 80's heyday of horror. This would not be a comedy, but instead a scary movie, one that would use humor to both release tension and draw people into the film.
The initial idea for Cabin Fever came while I was working on a horse farm in Iceland when I was 19 years old. I had been cleaning out a barn and got a skin infection on my face. I woke up in the middle of the night scratching my cheek, thinking I had a mosquito bite. I looked down at my hand and saw chunks of skin. The next morning I attempted to shave and literally, shaved half my face off. The strangest part was not only did it not hurt - it actually satisfied some strange itch underneath my skin. I went to see a dermatologist, who, judging by the horrified and puzzled look on her face, had never seen anything like it before. She gave me steroid creme and luckily, my face cleared up.
Shortly after I began writing the script, I showed it to my friend Randy Pearlstein with whom I had made over 30 short films at N.Y.U. film school. I remember hoping that Randy would be scared out of his mind, but soon after I handed him the first draft, I could hear him raucously laughing from the other room. He finished the script and said, "This is the funniest thing I've ever read!" I couldn't understand what he was talking about – the script was about a flesh-eating virus! How could it be funny?
Randy pointed out a number of structural and character flaws in the story. Once I told him what I was trying to communicate, he said, "What you're describing to me is scary, but it's not in this draft." What began as a notes session soon turned into a four-week collaboration of intense writing and rewriting, and because of Randy, the script is what it is today. He has a wonderful knack for dialogue as well as storytelling. We combined characters and completely restructured the story into what is now a film, all the while keeping the focus of the script on the very idea that drove all my favorite horror films: what is terrifying?
I feel there's a limit on what a writer can bring to a role, and when you have an actor who understands the character completely, your possibilities expand infinitely. I think we have been blessed with actors who understand the nature of their characters.
Movie Database
In Theaters
