The Crazies

The Crazies has a "been there, done that" feel to it (duh, it's a remake.) Confession: I have never seen the Romero original. I know, bad horror geek. It's on the list, really.


This version (produced by Romero) stars Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell (love her) as David and Judy Dutton, Sheriff and Doc of small town Ogden Marsh, Iowa. During a baseball game, Sheriff Dutton kills a local who walked unto the field with a shotgun. Thinking the local was drunk, Dutton moves on, until another local kills his wife and son by setting their house on fire. Later, Dutton and his Deputy (Joe Anderson, who I have never heard of but is really good here) discover the wreckage of a plane in a local bog. It doesn't take long for them to put two and two together when all the locals begin to go bat-shit crazy and the military moves in to "secure" the town.

The characters are likable and there are a few good scares here. The scene in the car wash is a memorable one. The townsfolk, once they turn "crazy," don't become Zombies per Se, but they do like killin'. The disease has a 48 hour incubation period, so you just know one of the main characters is going to get it and probably die heroically to save the others. This isn't a spoiler. You can see this coming a mile a way.

Not a Zombie.

If you have some time to kill and enough money for a matinee, you could do a whole lot worse than The Crazies. But it's really a "see it and forget about it" type of film. Except, next time you are in a car wash.