Tagline: Fear they neighbor.
Curiosity: It’s a remake of a George Romero film and got decent reviews. Also, I had a chance to watch it for free.
Plot: Officer Good Guy (Timothy Olyphant) is having a grand old time at a baseball game when a weird guy with a shotgun walks on to the field. The sheriff tries to talk the guy down, assuming he’s drunk, but when he cocks the gun and points it at Officer GG, homeboy acts in self-defense and blows him away. Needless to say, Weird Guy’s family is bummed out over this occurrence, and things get extra awkward for GG when the toxicology report reveals that Weird Guy’s blood alcohol level was 0.0.
Meanwhile, Officer Good Guy’s wife, Dr. Lady (Radha Mitchell), examines a creepy farmer. She thinks he’s OK, but she’s wrong. So wrong that Creepy Farmer sets his house on fire and kills his family. Dr. Lady sucks at being a doctor.
As more and more of the townsfolk start going psycho-crazy, it’s up to Officer Good Guy, Dr. Lady, and their disposable friends to figure out what's going on.
Thoughts: If I had paid to watch The Crazies, I suppose I would have been perturbed over its content. It’s not as gory as the trailer had hinted, and the script is more like a template than an original story. In fact, the script is frustrating in almost every possible way. [SPOILER] People are going crazy from a fast-acting virus/chemical thinger, but it seems to work at 1/10th speed on key characters [/SPOILER]. Locations picked for scares just seem stupid, like an extended scene where the characters get trapped inside a car wash. Maybe it’s because I worked at a car wash when I was 14, but they’re not the all-encompassing Saw-like death traps that horror films make them out to be. They’re designed specifically so cars can get off the tracks, forward or backward. Also, there should be like, I don’t know, 30 emergency exits sprinkled throughout. This crap didn’t work in The Final Destination, it doesn’t work here. Also, do they even have touch car washes anymore? Shit wrecks paint jobs. Perhaps that’s the real scare?
Sorry. Sorry. Anyhoozle, the leads are generally likeable, but their scenes are so rote. Put it another way: I care about the characters that die, but I do not care about the ones that live. Maybe if the film delivered in gore, I’d be more forgiving. But outside of two pretty scenes, the film just doesn’t go there.
I will say this, though: Director Breck Eisner pulls off this one neat-o trick. See, the townsfolk are insane murderers, but when left alone, they just kind of walk around silently like pod people. There’s a scene where Dr. Lady is saying goodbye to her house. She walks into the nursery for her unborn child and starts giving this monologue about “what could have been.” It’s a pretty wistful monologue… except it’s not technically a monologue, as there is a woman standing in the corner, silently staring at her. It’s such a simple, understated scare – Eisner doesn’t punctuate the scene with ridiculously loud audio. He just slowly pans over and lets the audience realize that something freaky is going on mere seconds before it occurs to the character. I feel bad for spoiling this scene because I think it’s the best in the film.
Or, it would be if Eisner didn’t recycle the trick over and over again. By the end of the film, what was once clever in its subtlety becomes annoying in its repetition. Which I suppose describes The Crazies in general. There are some cool scenes, but they don’t add up to a good movie.
Reflection: This carwash bullshit has got to stop, people.
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