The Crazies is a 2010 American horror film directed by Breck Eisner. The director is relatively new, however, as of this writing, he is penciled in to be directing the Karate Kid 2 film. Other-wise, I can’t say that I am familiar with the rest of his work.
It stars Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. Both are known for various different things. Radha Mitchell appeared in films like Silent Hill and Pitchblack while Timothy is most known for his roles in Deadwood and Justified.
The film is a remake of the 1973 film of the same name that was directed by George A. Romero. Notably, Romero also served as the producer of the remake.
The Crazies received positive reviews from critics, and was also a box-office success grossing more than twice its budget. I have been wanting to watch this film for a long-time. From the trailers, I always thought that it looked like an entertaining and worthwhile horror film. The plan was to save watching it for closer to Halloween, but I eventually decided “screw it” and well, here we are.
The story takes place in some fictional town in Iowa. Everything seems right as rain, but when the town’s water supply is infected with a virus, everything begins to go to hell. After an incubation period, the virus seeps into the infected and alters their mental state. They become bloodthirsty zombies that make prey out of anything that they can get a hold of.
The film’s concept is something that has been about a million-and-one times before. All that matters though, is if the film is able to bring something more to the table than a retread of what has already been seen. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really do that, … much at all.
The characters don’t have a lick of development to them as characters, it sets aside a couple of things, a well-knitted town, and a sheriff, but besides something we’ve seen before, it doesn’t really add any intricacies to them. While the actors and actresses may certainly be capable, they aren’t allotted the means to do anything with their craft. The dialogue is bland and bleak, while the story fails on various levels.
It is more ambitious than the worst zombie-films, but even the things that we see that show depth are things that we have seen before. There’s nothing innovative about the government becoming involved, or anything else that is implemented in this one. In other-words, there is no impression that I can say this film left on me. Another thing is how ‘straight’ all the characters play it.
There are moments that are funny which aren’t meant to be seen as funny, but they are because of audacity of some of the characters. There’s no ‘fun’ in this movie at all whatsoever. There’s no wit or humor, or entertaining chases, which could have worked. There have obviously been some strong horror-films that played it serious throughout, but this isn’t one of them.
In conclusion, while the special-effects and cinematography keep it from seeming completely low-budget, everything else practically screams it. The characters are cookie-cutter, and the film itself retreads the same areas that have already been journeyed. The Crazies fails at offering anything that’s worth anyone’s time.
Thanks for reading.
Rating: – Bad