Meadhall of the Comitatus

When I saw the ads for The Crazies, I was looking forward to never seeing it as long as I lived. It looked like another “we made zombies with a virus” movie. It turns out that we’re spared the zombie angle. This movie’s strength lies in its realism.

In keeping with the Hollywood tradition of not being able to think of anything new, this film is a remake of a George Romero flick from ’73.

Premise

A military aircraft delivering a biological weapon crashes in a small midwestern town. The water supply is contaminated, and the next thing you know, the population is going loopy.

We’re not seeing zombie-like flesh-eaters or even the modern “rage zombie” archetypes. These infected can work in groups, retain some of their personalities, and can fire a weapon. The bio-weapon was designed to “destabilize” a population, and it does its job well. Some “crazies” seem to simply have their violent inhibitions lowered, while others suffer extreme emotional detachment.

The most badass shot of the movie. I'm already working on the script for Thresher: Harvest of Bodies.

As if dealing with the crazies wasn’t bad enough, those who manage to escape the infection get to deal with the military clean-up/cover-up that puts the whole town in a big-ass Red Dawn prison camp.

Boys! Avenge me! AVENGE ME!

Cast

Here you’ve got your solid cast of decent actors who aren’t distractingly famous. Timothy Olyphant, who isn’t quite as big as Samwise Gamgee said, plays the likable sheriff, David Dutton. The other members of our left for dead quartet are David’s wife (and town doctor) Judy Dutton (Radha Mitchell), Deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson), and Judy’s receptionist Becca Darling (Danielle Panabaker). You’re not going to have your mind blown with the depth of these characters; in fact, they’re generic enough to make it easy to identify with them.

I never really thought about what it all means before. Now I see. I see it all! The world is in my EYES, man. They're like a snowglobe that I just keep shaking, only there's two, so it's like, in 3-D.

Technical

Plenty of good, solid special effects work in this film. The Trixie virus does have outward manifestations as it progresses, and we get some neat makeup effects towards the end. Blood and gunshots, stabbings, fires, and sweet vehicular damage abound.

The director gets plenty of kudos for keeping the right level of drama and suspense throughout. Nothing feels so over-the-top that it rips you out of the realm of believability.

Meet the Sméagols.

Popcorn Factor

This was a delightful surprise. For an us vs. them slaughterfest, this was more than watchable, it was satisfying and fun.