Charlie Dorf
Over the past several years, a number of zombies have come to the big screen, in films ranging from hilarious (Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead), to scary and well-done (28 Days Later), to down-right awful (Dawn of the Dead).
Going into The Crazies, I was pretty sure it would fall under the latter category. Like 2004’s Dawn of the Dead, it was a remake of a George Romero film (the father of zombie films), and I feared The Crazies would be equally brutalized. However, I was happy to have been proven wrong.
The film follows Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his wife Judy as their town is contaminated with a virus turning the people of their small Iowa town, Ogden Marsh, into “crazies,” homicidal husks of human beings whose sole purpose is to murder. As the couple, and as Deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson), attempt to escape the horror that has befallen their town, they are confronted by soldiers and “crazies,” as well as Clank’s own deteriorating mental status.
To begin, the most effective and surprisingly original aspects of the film were the “personalization” of the crazies (unlike most zombie films where the zombies as a whole are a character). However, in the film, nearly every “crazy” is a character from the film, making every “crazy” an individual character. Also, there are never more than three “crazies” on screen at a time, adding to the feeling that each “crazy” is of its own distinct entity.
As for the film’s non-“crazy” character, Olyphant gave one of his better roles, pulling off the small-town sheriff with quite a high measure of skill. Even more so, Anderson nailed the deputy by creating a character who held some of the film’s deeper meaning. As Anderson appears to start losing his own mind, it is never made clear whether he in fact has the disease, or has simply been emotionally deadened by what he has experienced.
Though I am not usually a huge fan of horror films, I enjoyed the constant feeling of tension built through the films well-paced “jump” moments, as well as tight camera angles. The violence was there but not over the top, as many movies these days tend to default to. The film does have its fair share of campy and goofy lines (as a woman suddenly runs toward the home of her boyfriend, Olyphant releases a terse and slightly comedic and timely swear, but the film ultimately redeems itself through a satisfying and complete story.
On a final note, one of the things I most appreciate about the film is that they realize there’s a virus EARLY! As a zombie movie fan, it gets tiresome to wait for the painstaking realization to come to the main characters’ faces so late in the movie.
Also, in the vein of 28 Days Later, the people are infected with a virus opposed to being reanimated corpses, adding a greater degree of believability. Hopefully, The Crazies will be the beginning of a new generation of zombie films.
