consumer bullying.

43. Cabin Fever (2002)

I was shopping at my local Target this past weekend—as I'm wont to do—and while I was perusing the $5 DVD titles, I was bullied by a sixtysomething-year-old woman into buying this movie. She walked up to the display, and seeing my eyes scanning the titles, she asked me if I'd seen this one because 'it's just soooo good.' I'm thinking, Really? An Eli Roth film? No way, lady. She processed my skeptical look and quickly rebutted, 'Do you like horror films?' I was afraid to say no. She was such an evangelist for this film and for the genre in general that I didn't want to let her down. For Christ sake, the woman's in her sixties and she's got a boner for splatterfests. I should really reward that, shouldn't I? So I affirmed: Yes, I love horror films. 'Well, then, you have got to see this one—because it's just amaaazing.' She scanned the shelf again for more supporting evidence. 'And it's only five bucks. What have you got to lose?' Indeed. What had I to lose?—besides, of course, five American dollars, which is really almost nothing these days. She watched with great satisfaction as I set the DVD in my cart, and then she said, 'I really hope I see you here again so I can find out what you think of it!' Ummm, okay. I was weighing you on the sanity scale up till now, and you just tilted over to the crazy side. I mean, are you, like, trying to hit on me or something? Because if that's the case, I am going straight home and rubbing every inch of my flesh with a scouring pad until I'm nothing but a giant seeping wound. I don't even know what that would accomplish, but (instinctively) I feel like that's the thing to do in cases like these. Despite the fact that I suddenly regretting stopping by the $5 DVD rack, I didn't remove the Cabin Fever DVD from my cart as I continued my shopping throughout the store. You might wonder why—considering I had absolutely no desire the see the film at all and suspected that I would despise it on an almost ideological level. Well, I'll be honest... I was kind of curious what this strange bird thought was an amaaazing horror film. I mean, this was the kind of frumptastic lady who looks like she has a lifetime subscription to Country Living and has (at one time) ordered wooden toilet paper holders in the shape of geese from the Lillian Vernon catalog. I wondered what kind of horror movie could possibly turn this old broad's crank... So I bought the DVD, took it home, and watched it, and now I have the answer. A really, really shitty one.