by Michael Nicholas
Ever been to a small town where you think everyone is acting in a related behavioral pattern or they seem to share the same group mentality? Well, in Ogden Marsh, Iowa, something in the water has it’s citizens playing a deadly game of ‘Monkey-See, Monkey-Do’.
‘The Crazies is a modern remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 horror classic of the same name. This time around, the film is directed by Breck Eisner(Sahara) and written by Scott Kosar and Ray Wright. Timothy Olyphant stars as Sheriff David Dutton with Radha Mitchell playing his wife Judy and Joe Anderson stepping in as Deputy Russell Clank.
After Sheriff Dutton unfortunately shoots to death a ‘crazed’ armed man at a high school baseball game, other townsfolk start to follow down the same maniacal path of the demented and deceased. The community becomes infected with an unknown toxin which causes them to act terribly violent and unpredictable. Zombies are the ‘in’ thing right now and zombies are what these humanoids most resemble. The town becomes quarantined after the government catches wind of the dire local circumstances, making escape from the creatures, let alone the military, impossible. All this culminates in Sheriff Dutton and Deputy Clank’s combined efforts to put the pieces of the mystery virus together and then find a safe way out of Dodge.
The movie resembles different horror genres, such as zombie, slasher and suspense, but Eisner does a fine job joining the styles to make a believable piece of cinema. There is a decent amount of gore highlighted by very creative death sequences. A lot of everyday farm and garage implements make for clever and innovative ways to die.
Musically, the film does a great job of producing eerie suspense and providing a haunting aesthetic, a rarity today in Hollywood’s lame and all too often, silent-than-cat jumps out-at ya cheap auditory thrills.
The filmmakers definitely weren’t trying to re-invent the wheel here, but anything made that doesn’t completely rip off the feel of projects before is a great start. An above average experience, that leaves a horror guru like myself satisfied – especially since I was nervous about a George A. Romero classic falling into the wrong hands and being ruined. No worries here though.
