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These are Wild Mass Guesses regarding the Cabin Fever films.

The disease that the protagonists are infected with is not necrotizing fasciitis.
... Or any other mundane flesh-eating disease. It's a manifestation of ZALGO. Which means...

Winston is a (possibly unknowing) pawn of Zalgo.
Nearly everything he does in both movies only spreads the virus further. Based on his token efforts to track down the contamination in the second movie, he might not even realize that this is his entire purpose.

Karen was just a runner-up prize. Paul really wanted Marcy
Even though he seemed to be in love with Karen, in the back of his mind, the chick Paul really wanted to get nekkid with was Marcy, but he didn't think he had a shot because she was dating Jeff. So rather then just pine away for her, he settled his attentions on Karen. There are a few points that make it seem like this was the case:
  • Paul comments that his "accidental" intrusion on Jeff and Marcy was actually the second time he'd burst in on them about to have sex. Once may be bad timing, but twice? He was hoping to catch a peek at Marcy's boobs.
    • He'd just been on a long car trip with them, watching the sex crazy pair do everything short of undress each other in the car. So when they arrived at the cabin and Jeff and Marcy go in to the bedroom and close the door behind them, what did he think they were doing?
  • When the group have a discussion about halfway through the movie and Marcy gets up and leaves, Paul's eyes seem to be watching her butt as she walks away.
  • When Jeff starts acting like a wuss after Karen gets sick, and Marcy starts getting frustrated with him, Paul suddenly has an angry outburst where he tries to act all leader-ly. He's showing a little alph-male aggression to impress Marcy, now that he thinks she's not so attached to Jeff.
    • In his speech, he suggests that they "eat alone, sleep alone", to prevent spreading the disease. Marcy seems to agree with his advice and doesn't share a bed with Jeff that night... She shares a bed with Paul instead. Paul isn't shown talking her in to his bed, but at the very least, he obviously didn't object to her going against his own suggestion. And if it was just a case of him being chivalrous, he could've given her the bed and slept on the couch, but instead he chose to share it with her.
  • Paul barely leaves Marcy's side the whole of the final morning. Every important act they do in this timeframe they're shown doing together.
  • When Jeff finally decides to abandon everyone, Marcy goes chasing after him and Paul tells her to just let him go. He doesn't seem the least bit interested in persuading Jeff to stay with the rest of them. In no way does it make sense in an emergency situation to let a group member run away and isolate themselves from the main group. On the other hand, if you want to be the rebound guy, you'd be more then happy to see the girl's ex disappear over the horizon.
  • After Burt and Jeff leave, Marcy and Paul put Karen back in the dark toolshed. They must get seperated briefly, then Paul is shown looking for Marcy so he can sit with her can comfort her. Yes, that's right. Karen, the supposed love of his life, is dying all alone in a dark tool shed, after just vomiting a bucketfull of blood all over the pickup truck, and it's perfectly healthy Marcy that he wanders off to comfort. Yeah, because she's the one whose really having a bad day.
  • In the fullscreen version of the movie, you can see that when he sits on the bed beside her, Paul places his hand on Marcy's thigh. Like, really high up her thigh, getting outside the areas where "just friends" would touch each other.
  • Their sudden sex scene makes a lot more sense if you consider that Paul always wanted to do her, and Marcy secretly knew. Then suddenly it's not like she's just randomly decided to have sex and grabbed the nearest guy available. She figures she's got no time left so there's no point rejecting him anymore. She might as well go out doing something they'll both enjoy.
  • While initially he's understandably a bit reluctant about doing a babe who might have a fatal disease, it doesn't take Paul long to bring a truckload of enthusiasm to the deed. It's almost like he's living out his dream.
  • Look at her. Karen's nice, maybe a 7 or 8 out of 10. Marcy's an 11.

The second movie takes place in the Happy Tree Friends universe.
Seriously, it's too over-the-top not to.

Paul and Marcy did it twice, the first time was in the morning, before they were getting ready to leave
In the unrated edition, they're shown sleeping together in the same bed (both fully clothed) the night before. Then, when Bert comes into the cabin the next morning telling everybody to get ready, Paul and Marcy emerge from the same room together. They've changed clothes, so it's not like they've just gotten out of bed, but they were still together. Draw your own conclusions.

  • Also, they may have done it twice even on camera. The sex scene we see is broken up in the middle by a shot of Karen dying in the tool shed before it cuts back to Paul & Marcy doing the mattress mambo from a different angle. Most people would just assume that this is the same sex we'd just seen finishing up. But in the earlier shots, they were near the edge of the bed whereas in this shot, they're in the middle. Also, the way Marcy was pinning Paul's arms down in the previous shots would've made it impossible for him to be able to reach up and grab her back to make the wounds we see later. But most telling is the fact that Paul wasn't wearing his watch in the first part, whereas in the second, he is. Guys don't put on their watches while there's a pair of D-cups jiggling 3 inches from their face! So perhaps, the first part was one sex scene. They finished, got out of bed, started to get dressed, Paul put on his watch. Then one or both of them got another craving and they climbed back into the ring for another round. So the other "the night before" theory is correct too, Marcy might've given Paul 3 wild rides. Go Paul!

Marcy was actually trying to make Paul sick.
It's been noted that if you watch earlier scenes of Marcy, you can see a red rash on her wrist - well before the red love scratches are made on her back. It's very likely that Marcy would've noticed this rash herself and realized she was already sick. If she did, then it's no wonder her next scene is a huge self-pitty-we're-all-doomed monologue. She already knew she was a dead woman. But by using the more ambiguous phrasing and telling Paul "We're all gonna get sick", instead of "I'm sick", she manages to talk him in to the ridiculous act of having sex with a potentially diseased woman.

Consider also the following:

  • She didn't use a condom. Despite often being regarded as careless renegades, promiscuous people are usually very careful and tend to keep precautions on-hand. Especially women, who run the risk of getting pregnant. Marcy certainly seems like an intelligent woman.
    • If she thought she was healthy, the possibility of Paul infecting her would've concerned her just as much as he was.
  • Many people have noted just how out of place that entire sex scene seems in the story, if taken at face value.
  • Marcy was incredibly aggressive in that encounter - firmly holding Paul down on the bed as if to prevent him from escaping.
  • Her quick response to Paul's question about condom's: "Don't worry. I'm healthy." Despite the incredibly flawed logic of the statement, she quickly puts the matter to rest. The question didn't even make her hesitate to reconsider the dangerous thing they were doing. It's as if her only thought was to shoot down Paul's urge to put on a condom.
  • The fact that she went straight to the bedroom after they put Karen back in the tool shed. It could be an innocent move, but on the other hand, it could've been that she was just laying in wait for her prey to come to her. As the last "healthy" person in the cabin, she would've known that Paul would quickly seek her out.
    • She brings up sex after all of 30 seconds of conversation with him. Seriously, how quickly would someone sober decide to get it on with their ex's best friend? She probably decided to have sex with him long before he actually entered the room.
    • She'd undone her hair. Most guys think a woman looks sexier with her hair down than with it tied back. Did she do it to be more seductive to him?
  • Any grabbing that leaves welts that are still sore ten minutes after the fact has got to be painful while it's happening. So why doesn't Marcy rein Paul in if he's hurting her while they're screwing? It's almost as if she's not doing him for pleasure, but putting up with it for some ulterior motive?

So why would she deliberately try to get him sick, too? Well, if she's convinced she was gonna die, then she probably didn't want to die alone. Jeff and But had just run off and Karen was already at death's door. She probably figured that Paul would probably run off sooner or later, too, leaving her all alone to die of the illness already killing her. But if he was sick, too, there'd be no point in him fleeing. He might as well just stay and die with her. Notice how surprised and upset she gets later when Paul decides to leave the cabin to look for Jeff.

Marcy and Paul possibly made a diseased baby.
The virus had mutated it at conception, making the newborn baby much hardier and able to keep growing in Marcy, even after she was dead. Then it'll burst free, all Alien-style and now the child shuffles through those woods, waiting for anyone foolish enough to wander into its territory.

Jeff's Mom knew about the disease in the area, and deliberately talked the group in to going there because she wanted to kill off her son's slutty girlfriend.
How else would Jeff know that the drinking water was tainted before anyone else had figured that out?

Each characters college major
There are very subtle hints to each main character's college major.

Jeff - Law (He threatens to sue the redneck store clerk when Paul gets bitten by Dennis)

Bert - Auto Mechanics (He's the one they task with fixing the car after the fight with the hermit.)

Marcy - Nursing/Medicine (When Paul discovers Karen is infected in the fingering scene, she's the one he calls for.)

Karen - Photography? (Umm, carries a camera in the beginning and takes pictures)

Paul - How to get away with murder? (He shows to be a very proficient killer towards the end. He kills Karen, The Dog, The Redneck Gang, almost kills Winston)

Cabin fever is a retelling of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Think about it, a group of 5 kids go to a very country area and face a force they weren't prepared for (Flesh eating Virus in CR, Cannibals in TCSM). They stop at a redneck store and meet the shop owner who seems to be a good, normal guy (Tommy and Nubbins). Tragedy strikes, the characters run to the store owner for help, but the store owner is revealed to be a bad guy and tries to kill them.

Marcy Survived
You never see the dog actually harming her (just lunging at her) and you never see her body afterwards. Notably, there's a severed foot on the ground that appears to be wearing Marcy's flip flop. But perhaps Karen owned a pair of flip flops just like that, too?

Marcy and Paul had already had a one night stand in the past
Marcy and Paul suddenly hooking up in the middle of an outbreak seems odd if you take it at face value. But wouldn't it seem more natural if they'd already slept together some time in the past, and they were just deciding to relive an old thrill?

The movie contains an elaborate secret message that Marcy and Paul were supposed to end up together.
There's a compelling fantheory going around that Cabin Fever actually had a subtle sub-plot that Marcy and Paul were always meant to be each other's true love. The theory goes that this adds a deeper element of tragedy to the story, in that disease denies them their "happily ever after."

The theory is based upon a long list of visual cues and character traits that all seem to depict a connection between Marcy and Paul. e.g. During the scene where the group's sitting around the fireplace, Marcy and Paul are sitting in positions that are basically mirror images of one another. Most of the items are very subtle coincidences, like this one. But there are a lot of them, and they persist throughout the movie.

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