IF YOU go down to the woods today...no, hold on, that was my review of Wrong Turn.

But here we are again, in the middle of nowhere, for Eli Roth's bloodfest Cabin Fever, a spatter and splatter tale which will leave you stirred but not really that shaken.

Gee whizz, when will these American college kids ever learn? When your exams are finished, why don't you just go have a huge party in someone's house in a well-lit, suburban area? But no, stupidity in horror is simply the post-ironic must these days, and so five young'uns set off for a remote getaway to get drunk, have sex and die horribly.

The murderer here is the nasty virus necrotising fascitis, which slowly but surely infects the friends, leading to a little paranoia and a lot more gore as they very individually succumb to its effects. The first girl to do so is callously dumped in the woodshed to bleed it out, while the rest turn on each other in their individual attempts to survive.

Cabin Fever is a bit of a 70s slasher homage, with Deliverance local inhabitants and atmosphere, Texas Chainsaw gore and a Last House on The Left soundtrack. But thankfully, Roth's manic sensibilities ensure that it has enough moments of note to establish itself as a little piece of horror magic.

The nicely black comedy - the squirrel shooting, use of sex scenes to revolt, man with harmonica rammed down his throat - which runs through the film as an undercurrent serves to cover up the dodgy plot machinations and substantial shifts in tone. And the special effects people know that gross is good - the leg-shaving scene and its aftermath in particular will remain in many a mind after watching.

On the negative, the film is simply not that scary. It goes all out for a build-up only to slash and burn as it gropes for a way to finish the story - which is inevitably going to be somewhat of an antiseptic disappointment after all those disintegrating bodies.