The Crazies review

George A. Romero's 1970's "The Crazies" is not a classic. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. What it is however is a good solid horror flick that's a bit differed from his 'Dead' series and one of the few non-franchise Romero pictures that is pretty good. The strength of the film was in its ability to shock and give away some cool, schlocky images. So the idea of someone remaking that movie works in my book because it's an adaptable story to any time period where paranoia and savage violence can run a muck. 2010's remake of "The Crazies" works for me. And it works because it's a basic, clear cut genre picture that we've seen, but it's style and attention to never becoming a CGI heavy, full blown zombie picture is admirable.

This is and isn't a zombie picture. They look like zombies... some of them... and they kill, but do not eat people, they're just crazy and homicidal. Our small band of townsfolk lead my Timothy Olyphant ('Deadwood' and 'Hitman') and Radha Mitchell ('Phone Booth' and 'Silent Hill') is attempting to get out the hellish town and make it to the city to let people know what's going on. However in their way is the crazed townies, a virus that may have infected all of them and the U.S. military who has a plan to contain the virus by killing everything in the town. Again nothing Earth shatteringly new about this plot or it's set ups and yet I can get into it. I think it's just because it plays out like an old school horror picture with a few new tricks.

We don't get a bunch of CGI hordes of crazies running around town, we get a much more enclosed, up close and personal kind of horror picture. It's photographic grain and lighting gives it a more independent feel (like the original) and there is still a great deal of light and dark humor to counteract the violence and tense sequences. Joe Anderson who plays the deputy and who may have been infected from minutes one (not a spoiler by the way, it's very much known from about twenty minutes in) steals a number of scenes by playing the crazed, somewhat funny and dangerous redneck. Olyphant hit a moment within the final act for me where I imagined him playing John Conner for a 'Terminator' film and thought it'd be fucking perfect, as he's got that leading man stride, but hasn't hit the real road yet. And Radha Mitchell gets quite into her scenes as the town doctor who's pregnant and still wanting to cling onto the life she wanted to. However in truth she isn't given a whole hell of a lot to do in the film, which is a shame.

Zombie movies are fully back with a vengeance and now that they are... I kind of want them dead again. "The Crazies" is close to being one, but not quite and in many ways I wish they would've continued with movie without them even really changing too much physically and just being crazy ass, nut jobs that cause violence. The shocking imagery interestingly enough still works really well in the film despite it all being stuff we've seen, but I think it really just has to do with the way things are done and the look and feel of the picture. "The Crazies" is a solid B-horror picture that's a fun watch, but nothing more.