- Directed by Travis Zariwny
- Written by Eli Roth, Randy Pearlstein
- Stars Gage Golightly, Matthew Daddario, Samuel Davis
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiTS5qztePA&t=1s
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The Horror Guys are baffled about why this was remade. It’s the same script and story as the original, there wasn’t much new, but some good bits were missing. The effects were fine, but nothing new there. It’s less funny. It’s mediocre by comparison.
Synopsis
Henry the trapper wanders through the woods carrying a rabbit. He tells the dog that he caught dinner, but the dog, whose name is “Pancakes,” explodes in a bloody mess in the man’s face. Credits roll.
Five friends are headed to a remote cabin in the woods. First, they stop at a general store for beer. A weird kid is wearing a cut-out rabbit mask and sitting on a bench. He bites Paul, and Tommy, the store’s owner, gets really upset. “Everybody knows you shouldn’t talk to Dennis,” he warns.
The man inside the store warns them about Lyme disease and bad stuff in the woods. He casually states that “Some hikers got real sick last week, but the doctors took care of them, I guess.”
The cabin is really nice. There’s no phone signal. There’s no TV. No Internet. Bert asks what the hell are they supposed to do all week? Still, Bert brought along a fully automatic assault rifle to play in the woods. Paul and Karen talk about how long they’ve known each other. Meanwhile, Jeff and Marcy have sex in the cabin.
Bert shoots Henry with his gun because Bert’s an idiot. Bert promises to get help but doesn’t. That night, around the campfire, Paul tells the same pointless story he told in the original. A hiker named Grim comes by with his dog and shares his weed with them. It starts to rain, so he doesn’t stay long.
Henry, the sick man, comes to the door, and he’s a mess. When Henry tries to steal their car, they all go out and attack the car. They end up spraying the guy with lighter fluid and setting him on fire.
The guys talk about getting help, and Marcy takes off first. Karen and Paul argue about setting a strange man on fire and whether it might have been the wrong thing to do. Paul and Jeff come across a woman slaughtering a diseased-looking pig in her barn.
When they get back to the cabin, they find Deputy Winston there, and she’s really weird.
At this point, it started to seem pointless to add anything new to the synopsis since this is obviously exactly the same film as the 2002 version. They even used the same basic script.
Commentary
What the hell were they thinking?
This is nearly word-for-word, nearly shot-for-shot, as the original. The few changes they did make were worse than the original. Who thought this was a good idea? The production values were good, the acting was good, and it all looks just fine, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with the original. Also, the original had a lot more humor and weirdness that this one lacks.
I was hoping that there would be some improved, updated special effects, or maybe some surprising twist at the end, but there was none of that. It was exactly the same story with some minor changes that weren’t even as good as the original.
We paid four bucks to watch this on Apple TV, and this was my biggest regret of the whole Black Friday weekend!