What actually happens
Squirrel season goes badly
A hermit named Henry finds his dog dead of a blood infection and catches the illness from its blood. Meanwhile five college friends, Jeff, Marcy, Paul, Karen and Bert, rent a remote cabin for October break. Bert goes squirrel hunting and shoots Henry by mistake. Henry is disfigured and bleeding, but Bert runs off and tells nobody. That night a friendly drifter called Grimm turns up at the campfire with his dog, Dr. Mambo, then leaves when it rains. Henry shows up at the cabin begging for help, and Bert shuts the door on him. Henry vomits blood and tries to take their car, then approaches Marcy and Karen, and Paul sets him on fire by accident.
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Everyone picks a different bad idea
The next day Jeff and Bert go looking for someone to fix the truck and meet a butcher, but they leave when they learn she is Henry's cousin. Paul phones Deputy Winston, who promises to send a tow truck. Paul tries to comfort Karen about Henry's death and finds an infected wound on her thigh, so the group shuts her in a shed. After the truck is fixed, Bert coughs up blood and hides it, then drives off once Paul and Jeff find out. Jeff takes the leftover beer and goes too, terrified of catching it. Bert stops at a convenience store, where the owner's disturbed son, Dennis, bites him, and the owner and two friends chase him away. Back at the cabin Marcy frets that all of them will get sick, and she and Paul impulsively sleep together.
The bath at the cabin goes wrong
After Paul leaves the cabin to look for Jeff, Marcy takes a bath and cries. This is the scene people dread most, and it comes in the middle of the movie. As she shaves her legs, her skin starts peeling away, and in a panic she bolts outdoors, where Dr. Mambo attacks her and eats her. Paul, meanwhile, finds Henry's body in the reservoir and works out that the infection travels through the water supply. Back at the cabin he finds what is left of Marcy and sees Dr. Mambo feeding on Karen, whose face has decayed completely. He shoots the dog with Bert's gun, then kills Karen with a shovel as a mercy.
Hospital rides are hard to come by
Bert, dying, makes it back to the cabin with Dennis's father and two companions chasing him, and they kill him. Paul kills all three of them. He goes looking for Jeff and finds Grimm's corpse in a cave instead. He takes the convenience store's truck, realizes while driving that he is infected, and hits a deer. He finds Deputy Winston partying with underage drinkers and asks for a ride to the hospital, but Winston gets an order to shoot several infected people on sight before they can leave. Paul attacks Winston without killing him, then tries to hitch a ride and passes out. A passing vehicle drops him at a hospital, where the doctors ask Winston to transfer Paul to another facility.
The lemonade stand is open
On the following day Jeff, who spent the night drinking in the woods, comes back to the cabin. He cries at the remains of his friends, then becomes thrilled when he realizes he got away. He raises his arms in victory, and the local police kill him and burn his body along with the remains of Bert and Karen. The sheriff asks Winston whether he took care of Paul. Two children scoop up lake water to make lemonade for their stand, and they have no idea that Paul, barely alive, is lying in the lake and fouling the water. Later the sheriff and his deputies drop by the convenience store that belongs to the children's grandfather and buy glasses of lemonade.
The ending, explained
Jeff returns to the cabin, cries over what is left of his friends and celebrates having survived, and then the local police kill him and burn his body with Bert's and Karen's. Marcy, Karen, Bert, Grimm and the posse that chased Bert are all dead by this point. Paul, the last of the friends, ends up barely alive in the lake. Two kids take water from it for their lemonade stand, and the sheriff and his deputies stop at the store run by the children's grandfather and buy a glass each.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether there is a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: not fine, and we're sorry.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Cabin Fever scary?
Cabin Fever is a 6 out of 10 with medium dread. The fear is mostly body horror: a spreading infection and some very gory scenes.
How does Cabin Fever end?
All five friends die or are left dying. Paul ends up barely alive in a lake, and the infection reaches a lemonade stand that sells to the sheriff and his deputies.
Does the dog die in Cabin Fever?
Yes, a dog dies in Cabin Fever, and so does a second one. One is found dead early on with a gory wound, and the other is shot at repeatedly until it is killed.
Is there a post-credits scene in Cabin Fever?
Nobody has confirmed whether Cabin Fever has a scene after the credits.
What causes the infection in Cabin Fever?
It starts when a hermit named Henry touches the blood of his dog, which died of a blood infection. It then spreads through contact and through the reservoir, where Henry's body ends up.
