THE CRAZIES (USA 2010) ***
Directed by Breck Eisner

A no-nonsense remake of the George Romero 1973 horror flick of the same name, THE CRAZIES tells the story of four people on a journey of survival as they escape the infected people of their town and the military.

The four are the sheriff and his wife (Radha Mictchell), his deputy (Joe Anderson) and the nurse (Danielle Panabaker) working for his doctor wife.

It all starts when sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) of Ogden Marsh, a county of Iowa shoots dead what appears to be a threatening drunken resident.  It turns out that a downed plane has the town’s local water supply contaminated causing the infected to turn into the crazies of the film’s title.  That is as far as the plot goes but director Eisner takes his material seriously, working on character development (the husband and wife bonding), behaviour shifts (sheriff turning mental under stress) and working relationships (sheriff and deputy and doctor and nurse).  While all this works well to make the audience care for a film’s characters, all might be a little too much for what is basically a B- horror movie. 

By the time the film reaches its final reel, it becomes apparent that all the events have been seen time and again in one apocalyptic (28 DAYS LATER comes immediately to mind) or even zombie film before.  It is a matter or deciding where to run when there is nowhere to go.

Eisner’s film is well shot from his close ups (example of sheriff’s badge and ring indicating the county and his marriage status respectively), camera work and impressive pyrotechnic scenes.  But his film works best in the first half, when Eisner creates an atmosphere of genuine spookiness when it is not yet revealed the cause of the strange events.  But the film shifts into standard horror gore fest soon enough, complete with knife stabbed into the front of hand and lots of splattered blood.

Eisner at least spares his audience of any possible messages (such as global warming or environmental affects), but the film still plods towards a copout ending where a sequel is most likely possible if this film is a hit.