THE CRAZIES-2010-Residents of a small Iowa town are acting weird (parts were filmed in Georgia though). Timothy Olyphant (TV's JUSTIFIED) is the town's sheriff who discovers there's something wrong with the drinking water. He's almost cut to pieces by a saw wielding coroner (who had already sewn some victim's mouth shut) and another guy burns down his house with his wife and kid in it. Eventually the government gets involved and rounds up everyone including his wife (Radha Mitchell). There's lots of chaos and killing but not much to distinguish it from any of the other "modern day horror flicks" (like the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake which parts of this resemble). And while the original blurred the lines between who's crazy and who's not, this version makes it clear our evil government is once again to blame. It could also be the only horror where victims are terrorized while going through a car wash!
Director Brett Eisner (SAHARA) has taken the premise of George Romero's paranoid claustrophobic low budget classic and turned into a typical drawn out over emoting disaster movie. The acting is better and of course the budget is bigger but there's just nothing new here. Just a lot of cheap thrills and excessive violence. And as usual it makes me wonder about the mental health of the director, although Romero himself was one of the executive producers! One of the writers Scott Kosar also scripted remakes of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. The other screenwriter Ray Wright wrote CASE 39 (two writers to script a remake??).
Apparently I'm in the minority on this movie as it was both a box office and critical success.
Thanks for reading!
2 comments:
Boring, bland and lacks all of the personality of the original film. Despite a rock bottom budget and some questionable acting, Romero's film is so much better.
Glad you agree. Bigger isn't always better!
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