Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker
Directed by: Breck Eisner
Our Score: 3 out of 5 Stars
“Is this Hell? No, it’s Iowa. “The Crazies” takes place in a small Iowa town, Ogden Marsh, which is suddenly plagued by insanity and then death after a mysterious toxin contaminates their water supply. The film follows Sheriff Dutton (Timothy Olyphant from Hitman), his pregnant wife (Radha Mitchell from Silent Hill), his deputy (Joe Anderson from Across the Universe) and a teenager (Danielle Panabaker from 2009’s Friday the 13th) as they try to escape both the virus and the people that are trying to contain the virus. The film is based on the 1973 film by George Romero of the same name.
The original film, which wasn’t very good to begin with, doesn’t share much similarity to the remake which is probably a good thing. The remake is only a slight improvement from the 1973 Romero film. Since there are so many remakes happening recently, it is a dilemma whether to compare old with new since there are so many and a lot of studios are focusing on reimagination.
The film starts off with the town participating in a baseball game which is interrupted with the town drunk walking on the field with a shotgun. After this, everything seems to go to Hell. One by one the whole town starts to fall into this craze. Next thing you know the whole town is under quarantine and taken over by the government, with the townspeople being rounded up into concentration camp-like groups. It’s up to Sheriff Dutton and his crew to escape the town before it is too late.
The film has some good scares but they are few and far between, which made the movie drag a little. The music by Mark Isham keeps you on your toes throughout but by far it is not as creepy as the “Shutter Island” score which had you biting your nails. The gore in the film is marginal, but not overdone which worked for the film. I would have liked to see a bit more interaction with the “Crazies” and everyone else. Instead those inflicted with the virus seem to just lurk in the shadows and don’t really get much screen time.
So far 2010 has been very weak in the horror department with “Daybreakers” and “Legion.” “The Crazies” wasn’t a masterpiece, but it was a good watch overall. Surely expect “The Crazies 2” in the very near future.
I just got back from seeing the crazies.. I agree that we definitely should have seen more of the crazies being, well, crazy. But the pop ups were pretty good. Certain scenes had me practically covering my eyes, and I’ll admit I did run from the car into the house.
I like the original movie. This one was ok. My problem was that it doesn’t have a solid antagonist. The government, who is the real bad guy in this, was glossed over and never really was treated like the evil it is and the crazies were not in it enough either, like you said.
I feel that the film was too safe or hands off so not to offend an audience who doesn’t want to bad mouth the government. But if you look at what they did in that movie, they were bad but it felt sort of delt with with kid gloves.
But it wasn’t terrible. I liked the characters. It did run a bit too long.