"Wild man's world is crying in pain, what you gonna do when everybody's insane?" The lyrics may have been sung by Heart, but that is the exact dilemma facing the residents of Ogden Marsh in The Crazies. It might be all of that fresh air, or small town isolation, but i've got a feeling it's got something to do with the plane carrying a biological weapon that crashed in the town's drinking water reserve. Just a theory.
The townsfolk begin to act a little differently by doing things normal people wouldn't consider. Things like bringing a shotgun to opening day of baseball season, or mowing the lawn in the middle of the night after you have locked your family in a closet and set the house on fire. These events are rightfully confusing to the local Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), but once the government clean-up crew rolls into town logic and explanation take a backseat to escape and survival.
The Crazies is like a decaffeinated 'Zombie' movie. The virus that effects these people doesn't quite turn them into undead cannibals. They may look diseased, and are unable to thwart their madness with reasoning, but the fact that they use weapons to kill as opposed to their teeth is the only real difference. Monsters with enough motor functions to still use guns are not that frightening, so it's a good thing edged weapons like knives and even pitchforks are thrown into the mix. I also like the fact that the infected are not the only dangers our group of escapees must face. There are also hillbillies who decide to go human hunting off-season, and the masked military group that attempts to quarantine the town, and then just decides its easier to shoot and torch all remaining survivors.
Most people probably do not realize that The Crazies is in fact a remake of the 1973 film of the same name. It was the forgotten bridge project that the godfather of zombie films George A. Romero made in the decade gap between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. It is dated and extremely low budget, but well worth seeking out. On the other hand if you are looking for something similar with a more modern feel then I would recommend revisiting the vastly underrated 28 Weeks Later. A film most dismissed as incomparable to it's predecessor, I felt it surpassed it. It is scary, loud, action-packed, unpredictable, violent, and full of up and coming stars like Idris Elba, Rose Byrne, and The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner. It is truly one of my personal favorite zombie films.
Is The Crazies worth your time and money? Sure, if you have never seen a horror film of this nature before. I've seen damn near every one. The film moves along well enough and contains enough pseudo-suspense scenes to keep it mildly edgy and entertaining, but it is really nothing special. Since it is distributed by Overture Pictures, which is a company owned by Starz, I would recommend waiting six months and watching it instantly on Netflix one night if you are crazy bored. C+
Note: I recently read in an interview with Timothy Olyphan-tastic (as Bree and Kevin Smith have dubbed him) that two of his all time favorite films are Blue Velvet and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Crazy indeed.
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