People love to remake George Romero (“Diary of the Dead”) movies. Each of the first three “Of The Dead” series has had a remake, with the genre-defining 1968 “Night Of The Living Dead” getting two. Of course, none of the remakes were directed by Romero, so each film kind of feels like a brand new experience. This can be good, like 2004’s “Dawn of the Dead,” or catastrophic, like the straight-to-DVD 2008 remake of “Day of the Dead.”
But there’s a reason Romero is more famous for his classic zombie films rather than the 1973 version of “The Crazies.” The original film was plagued with weird pacing, mediocre acting and a heavy dose of B movie cheese. Thankfully, Breck Eisner’s (“Beyond”) remake is devoid of all of these things and is a rare example of a remake that’s actually better than the original.
Timothy Olyphant (“A Perfect Getaway”) stars as David Dutton, the sheriff of a small town in Iowa. When the locals begin going violently insane after being exposed to a strange chemical, Dutton, his wife (Radha Mitchell, “Surrogates”), his deputy (Joe Anderson, “Rogues Gallery”) and a nurse (Danielle Panabaker, “Friday the 13th”) attempt to flee the town. With the town under military quarantine and with violent maniacs roaming the streets, this proves no easy task.
Olyphant delivers an all-around solid performance in the lead role. One standout scene about midway through the movie has him taunting a “crazy” who’s trying to attack his wife. When he realizes he can’t reason with the crazy, he begins to amp up his taunts until they’re absolutely dripping with malice. Based on what his character has gone through up to that point, it’s a positively satisfying scene that comes to a climax with one of the most creative uses of a knife in recent film memory.
As David’s wife Judy Dutton, Mitchell similarly delivers a competent, if unremarkable, performance. The only real problems are with the character herself, who basically feels like a stock horror female lead. Deputy Russell Clank, played by Anderson, is the perfect sidekick character. He’s ever faithful to his sheriff and actually delivers a few laughs, though fortunately, the character never descends into the realm of comic relief. As the film progresses, tension builds in Clank to the point where you’re not sure if he’s infected or simply cracking under pressure. Clank is one of the more interesting and dynamic characters in the film.
Creative lighting greatly enhances the film’s atmosphere. The colors are de-saturated and bleak, and most indoor scenes are bathed in the sickly glow of fluorescent light. During the day, exterior shots seem slightly washed out and surreal, and at night the darkness consumes scenes in a way that translates the characters’ obscured vision without blinding the audience.
The pacing is also well controlled, especially in comparison to the plodding original version. The opening scenes find a solid balance that pulls you into the horror quickly while still taking the time to build an atmosphere. From there, the tension continues to build at a comfortable pace. In the first half of the film, townspeople slowly start to lose their minds, repeating non-sequiturs, whistling to themselves and fading in and out of catatonia. By the end, they become full-blown homicidal maniacs. Even if this development sometimes seems to be on the sidelines, watching it helps to build the film’s creepiness.
One minor annoyance is that the film relies heavily on “shock” situations. Several times, the film builds up tension like something is coming, only to have the shock be something other than what was expected. It’s a commonly used clich? in horror films, but it really kills the effect when it happens so many times in one movie. There are actually two separate occasions where a character runs out to investigate a noise in his or her barn, the film building up like a crazy is about to leap out of the shadows; both times, the character ends up being called back to the house by a screaming family member. Once would’ve been effective, but twice just seems weird. Although “The Crazies” isn’t technically a zombie film, it definitely feels like one. From exploring the burnt-out husk of a once prosperous town to the film’s genre-typical non-ending, “The Crazies” is packed with hallmarks of the zombie genre. False shock moments tend to be overused, but that comes with the territory in most horror films. For fans of monster movies or horror at large, “The Crazies” is a great modern horror film and the perfect example of how a remake should be done.
3 1/2 stars out of 5.
