The Crazies (2010)

Ah, another remake. This time, we have a little known George Romero movie being remade. This is a remake I don’t have a problem with because it’s little known and apparently not a movie that has aged well. So why not update it and fix some problems. And I can tell you, it’s a very good movie.

We focus on a small town in Iowa that is accidentally infected with a biological weapon. Timothy Olyhphant stars as Sheriff David Dutton and Radha Mitchell plays his wife and town doctor Judy. We also have Joe Anderson as Deputy Russell Clank and Danielle Panabaker as Judys Assistant Becca. Everyone gives good performances here, grounding the film and giving us characters we care about. Olyphant is badass yet very human.

I think the best thing about this movie is we are just as in the dark as the characters. The movie starts off at a high school baseball game that is interrupted by a townsman with a shotgun walking onto the field. We know whats wrong in the sense we know he’s been infected. But we don’t know what that implies, and from this scene on we are propelled forward.

The tension is pretty good in this movie. Director Breck Eisner crafts a moody little film here. The scares are well crafted and even the jump scenes are better than most. I think the best thing I can say for this movie is that it feels like a Stephen King book. Think “The Stand” on a smaller scale.

The movie isn’t without it’s flaws. Some minor characters aren’t well acted and some of the dialogue is a but clunky. Editing is a bit iffy here and there. While not a negative, but something that should be mentioned is the amount of blood. While there is blood in this movie, there where some scenes that should have had a lot more blood. Now, I don’t think the movie should have been a blood bath. It’s just some acts of violence should have had considerably larger amount of blood. But I think overall the violence was done well, a middle ground between a Rob Zombie movie and a pg 13 “horror” movie.

Overall, I think this was a very good movie. It builds a very good paranoid story about distrusting the government and has a strong atmosphere. The acting is good throughout and the director shows a strong sense of scares. I would like to see him do some more horror, maybe let loose a little more with the violence. I also have to give big props for the ending, which just builds and builds to a very nihilistic ending. I enjoyed and recommend it.

8.5 out of 10. Maybe more on a second viewing.