The ‘Cabin Fever’ Remake Will Use the Original Script, Because Who Wants to Mess With Pancakes?

By  · Published on October 21st, 2014

Lionsgate Films

Back in April, it was announced that Eli Roth’s horror-comedy opus Cabin Fever would be getting remade, so that a new generation who couldn’t afford getting in trouble with their parents again to sneak into an R-rated movie would now be allowed to witness the grotesque beauty of bein’ young and havin’ your skin fall off. And pancakes. Oh, the pancakes.

While it seemed strange at the time of the announcement that a film just released in 2002 would already be rebooted (but hey, weirder things have happened), there was at least comfort in the fact that someone – namely new director Travis Zariwny (Intruder) – saw something in the original that lit a fire and produced new ideas and torrents of gore. Think of how many horror films you’ve seen that have involved getting a wild bunch of cute young things up to the spooky cabin that someone has clearly neglected to clean for a couple months or decades, only to realize that things are terribly amiss – and that it really would have been a good idea to pay attention to their surroundings instead of banging in the woods. The possibilities for reimagining that scenario are pretty endless.

However, a new layer of intrigue has been piled onto the remake. Roth, the brains (the braaaains!) behind the original film – he served as director and co-wrote the script with Randy Pearlstein – is on board for the production as an executive producer. Roth’s role as executive producer by itself isn’t too big of a shock; he’s providing guidance on a reboot of one of his most beloved films. But Cabin Fever, the modern edition isn’t going to need too much supervision. They’re using Roth and Pearlstein’s original script.

No rewrites or fights ahead. The new Cabin Fever will be word-for-word the same as the original flavor, but with a new vision for the film courtesy of Zariwny. Roth is reportedly delighted by this premise, telling Deadline:

“Travis had an amazing vision for my original script, and as a scary movie fan I really wanted to see it. I almost see this like re-staging a play, and I’m excited to see what ideas Travis and the cast bring to it. They’re all fans of the original and want to make a film that’s a new classic and I believe they will.”

So if you were afraid that the remake would not include the pancakes scene (God, I was), then rest assured that it’s all staying. Ever disgusting, morbid, funny, nauseating detail from that script will come back – just in a different package. This time around, the film stars Gage Golightly (Teen Wolf), Matthew Daddario (When the Game Stands Tall), Dustin Ingram (Paranormal Activity 3), Nadine Crocker (Deadgirl) and Samuel Davis (From Dusk Till Dawn, TV).

Seeing the scenario as re-staging a play is an interesting way to look at it, because it will surely be a little bizarre for fans of the original and it would seem, especially Roth, when comparing the two films. But it’s also a cool exercise in finding the possibilities within one script. Roth had a hit on his hands when he made Cabin Fever, and the gross images we associate with it are burned in the back of our brains forever. But here’s Zariwny, someone who has found a different angle, more compelling enough to make a completely new film.

Just exactly how many buckets of blood is he going to require?