Social Bookmarking
[The Crazies]
Plot:In a terrifying tale of the "American Dream" gone wrong, four friends find themselves trapped in their hometown. The Crazies is a reinvention of the George Romero classic directed by Breck Eisner from a screenplay by Ray Wright (Pulse, Case 39) and Scott Kosar (The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) is sheriff of Ogden Marsh, a picture-perfect American town with happy, law-abiding citizens. But one night, one of them comes to a school baseball game with a loaded shotgun, ready to kill.
Another man burns down his house after locking his wife and young son in a closet inside. Something is infecting the citizens of Ogden Marsh...with insanity. The few still sane find themselves trapped: Sheriff Dutton; his pregnant wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell); Becca, an assistant at the medical center; and Russell, Dutton's deputy and right-hand man. Forced to band together, an ordinary night becomes a struggle for survival as they try to get out of town alive.
Cast:Timothy Olyphant,
Radha Mitchell,
Danielle Panabaker,
Joe Anderson.
My Thoughts:It's the government again!
Review:"The Crazies", directed by Breck Eisner...is a remake of George Romero's horror classic about a town whos people become infected with a deadly toxin, which causes them to go "crazy" so to speak, and murder their friends and family, and other loved ones. While the remake can get boring and tedious at times, it still manages to deliver that strong sense of horror and shock and terror that we've come to know and love from such films as "28 Days Later", and other horror films that share similarities with it. The terror begins when during a softball game, local sheriff David Dutton (Olyphant), notices one of the locals walking onto the field brandishing a shotgun. He doesn't seem to be himself, and doesn't speak a word. Dutton warns him to drop the weapon.
He doesn't, so Dutton "drops"...him. This incident is then followed by a string of similar incidents where the once normal townspeople began killing their own families and innocent people as well. Soon, Dutton and his deputy realize they have a full-fledged pandemic on their hands, and now they will have to fight their way through the infected in order to escape the town and reach safety. You can expect the usual tricks and treats from "The Crazies", such as disturbing murder scenes, those obligatory..."who's lurking around the corner" and the equally obligatory..."what's that noise?" moments, and of course the super obligatory "military shows up to contain the infection" sequences, which basically translates to "soliders strapped with big ass guns join the party to gun down anybody who resides in the town of Ogden Marsh, so as to keep the infection from spreading."
Yeah, this movie does that old thing too. And while we've seen it all before, it still works modestly well in this film because the crazies themselves also have guns, and they actually do battle with the military guys from time to time. These people are not raving lunatics, but rather crazed killers. They can still reason, and do things like fire guns, and chase people, and even fight people hand-to-hand, ala a sequence late in the film involving one of the movies major characters. But it's just that the virus has taken away their "mental/moral line" so to speak, that line which keeps people from commiting murder.
At the same time, it also gives them that walking/pale-as-death look which is good for scaring the crap out of people in horror films. Radha Mitchell plays Judy Dutton, David's wife, and a local doctor in the town. Of course once the shit hits the fan, she does very little doctoring, and a lot more "getting the hell out of dodge" with her husband, and his deputy, and a few other survivors they pick up along the way. Of course the big-time havoc gets wreaked while they are all trying to escape the town.
Treachery, and surprise attacks all make the journey and mission to escape, that much more difficult, and the film, which starts off as a slow build into utter madness, by the second act, descends into one of those "group members are picked off one by one" kind of deals, where sadly enough, it is quite easy to predict who will and won't make it. Although the film does not make it easy for any of the characters, even Olyphant and Mitchell's characters, still, you can pinpoint who will live and who will die with great ease.
Blood and gore levels in "The Crazies" aren't super-high, but really the movie focuses more on disturbing kills which involve pitchforks, and heavy crop equipment. So while the kills aren't very bloody or gory, some of them anyways, they are disturbing enough psychologically due to the way they are played out in front of the viewer. The films finale is strong as well, delivering some heavy suspense, thrills, and close-call moments. All of that good stuff which gives a film the strong conclusion that it needs to send the casual moviegoer home with the satisfaction of money well spent.
"The Crazies" does have it's slightly negative moments though. The revelation of what caused the infection to begin with offers up the shocking (sarcasm) revelation that our old pals the U.S. government were up to their old shenanigans again, and in the middle of the movie, things kind of drag a bit due to the lack of action. But beyond that, the movie manages to deliver. Not as good as Romero's version did, but close enough.
Positives:Olyphant and Mitchell give good performances, as does Joe Anderson as Dutton's deputy. Great finale, some strong moments of suspense and thrills, and the story does a nice job of delivering that "town under siege" feeling where anything and everything that comes around the corner might be a threat.
Negatives:The whole government/man-made virus subplot was so cliche, and the middle part of the film drags a bit with hardly any action.
Overall:Three stars out of four.
(
Talk about it in the Forums!)
(
Back to the main page)
