The Crazies ***

With virtually every popular classic horror movie having been remade or getting remade in the near future, the latest to get the remake treatment is, for once, not a very well known one, rather quite an obscure one. The original The Crazies, released in 1973, is one of director George A. Romero’s lesser known films, failing to develop the same kind of reputation that his Dead trilogy attained. It probably doesn’t help that on the surface the film bares distinct similarities with Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, the plot sounding very much like a zombie movie. No doubt many will also approach the 2010 version of The Crazies thinking it is a zombie movie, particularly with the definition of what defines ‘zombie’ having being blurred over the years by films like 28 Days Later and even the remake of Dawn of the Dead to some extent. But a zombie movie it most definitely isn’t.

The American Dream goes horribly wrong when the residents of small American town Odgen Marsh start succumbing to an uncontrollable urge for violence. As the horrific bloodshed escalates into anarchy, the military attempts to contain the epidemic, using deadly force to seal off the town. This means that the few healthy citizens who remain are trapped in a hellish scenario where depraved killers lurk in the shadows. Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), his pregnant wife Judy (Radha Mitchell), medical assistant Becca (Danielle Panabaker) and Dutton’s deputy Russell (Joe Anderson) find themselves trapped in a once-idyllic town they can no longer recognise. Unable to trust former neighbours and friends, deserted by the authorities and terrified of contracting the illness themselves, they are forced to band together in a desperate and bloody struggle for survival.

First things first, I will reiterate that The Crazies, despite in many ways seeming like one, is most definitely NOT a zombie movie. Yes, the film is about an infection that turns its victims into rampaging psychopaths but the infected are not the undead, the virus is not spread by being bitten and rather than everyone being affected in exactly the same way like in zombie films, here the virus affects everyone in a different and individualistic manner. Now that that is out of the way, onto actually reviewing the film. The Crazies is a film that wastes no time in getting started with the horror presence being established right from the opening shot of the town in flames and the subsequent ‘two days earlier’ shot in which the first signs of the outbreak show themselves. This proves to be something of a mixed blessing, though. On one hand, the film doesn’t waste any time with irrelevant establishing scenes, getting straight to what most people will want to see – the horror – but, on the other, the fact that we don’t get to know the characters before all hell breaks loose makes it somewhat difficult to really care what happens to them. A general lack of character development is one of the failings that prevents the film as a whole from being completely successful, another possible failing being that, unlike in George A Romero’s original film – which showed the perspectives of both the towns people and the military – here we only see the perspective of the townsfolk. Aside from one brief scene, the military are presented simply as an antagonistic force. The characters also fail to really pop out of the screen because, while the performances are generally decent, the acting is rarely extraordinary, with only Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell being particularly noteworthy and then Mitchell’s talents are largely wasted in a role that requires little of her. The plot is also far from perfect, delivering a convincing and rather terrifying scenario but suffering at the hands of certain gaps in logic and a failure to do anything particularly fresh or innovative. This is also very much the case with the film’s attempts at being scary. The film mostly shies away from showing gory details (a scene involving people being stabbed with pitchforks is shot in such a way that we don’t really see anything and the mowing down by combine harvester scene hinted at in the trailer is actually non existant) – good news for more squeamish viewers – instead focusing on actual scares and in this regard it is semi-successful, utilizing jumps and false jumps to decent effect but failing to deliver any scenes that will truly terrify – again, good news for more sensitive viewers – and, perhaps due to the low budget, failing to fully tap the potential of the concept, too often resorting to the generic. So, overall, The Crazies is a decent and reasonably effective horror flick but one that fails to be especially scary and is nowhere near as crazy as you might expect.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)