The Crazies (2010)

Directed by: Breck Eisner | 101 minutes | action, drama, horror, thriller, science fiction | Actors: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker, Christie Lynn Smith, Brett Rickaby, Preston Bailey, John Aylward, Joe Reegan, Glenn Morshower, Larry Cedar, Gregory Sporleder, Mike Hickman, Lisa K. Wyatt, Justin Welborn

Timothy Olyphant was on the cusp of a major breakthrough quite recently, after a long period of small supporting roles in television series and films such as ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ and ‘Dreamcatcher’. After all, he had the title role in the simple but entertaining ‘Hitman’ and was the boss against Bruce Willis in the third sequel of ‘Die Hard’. Nevertheless, the Hawaiian did not make any big leaps after that, and he now ends up in a leading role again, but in this case again in a small film: ‘The Crazies’. A horror remake of the 1973 film of the same name, from one of the biggest names in the genre, George A. Romero, whose films are replayed quite regularly. Director Breck Eisner is also no stranger to remakes. When ‘The Crazies’ hits Dutch cinemas, he is working on two others, classics ‘Flash Gordon’ (1980) and ‘The Brood’ (1979). The fact that Romero is associated with this project as executive producer does a lot for expectations, but the umpteenth plot around biological weapons and all-destroying viruses unfortunately does not live up to it.

We follow some residents of a small town in the American Midwest, with the focus mainly on Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), his wife Judy (Radha Mitchell) and Deputy Sheriff Russell (Joe Anderson). From the opening scene, it’s clear that something is going on in the town when an apparently intoxicated resident walks onto the sports field during a baseball game with a loaded gun. Sheriff Dutton is forced to shoot him to prevent escalation. However, research shows that there was no alcohol consumption. Then more people get it on their hips and we see the village slowly turning into the now well-known zombies. Or here: Crazies. We discover that something is amiss in the water supply, but since the sheriff and his wife live at the end of the line, they are – very practically – out of harm’s way for the time being. However, Deputy Russell is a little closer to the source…

When the army is then called in to evacuate the village and quarantine the inhabitants, infected or not, one can guess how the story will continue. The military deployment is, as so often in horror movies about a mysterious virus, inhumane, inadequate and the source of the main potential in the plot; how would the national armed forces actually operate in such a case, and what is the real danger? The virus, or the military trying to stop it from spreading at all costs? This underlying thought rears its head just as successfully halfway through, when Dutton’s wife is wrongly placed in the wrong camp – she’s pregnant and her elevated temperature is mistakenly seen as a symptom of the virus. However, the director completely abandons any further attempt at social commentary or intelligent message, when the situation, assisted by every conceivable horror cliché, degenerates into total chaos. People can no longer be trusted. Behind every camera angle, out of sight of the protagonists, are deadly zombies. In rooms where lights would normally be on, it is now dark so that the same protagonists (and the viewer) can be ‘surprised’ everywhere. While the group of survivors on the way to an uncertain end shrinks, you really don’t care if they reach a safe harbor or not. The accumulation of exciting intended moments that you have seen so many times before only ensure that you steadily and sighing distance from the fate of the protagonists. ‘The Crazies’ therefore does not manage to rise above the average, and only offers the real horror fans sufficient basis (unknown virus, military intervention, escalation) to fill a hundred minutes with mindless bloodshed. Entirely within an apparently tolerated stage of a genre in which no one seems to expect – or need – more than flimsy ten, fifteen-minute premisses that are then needlessly stretched into complete chronicles of horror’s demise. Or at least of a stable low average level of this specific subgenre, which after the revival around ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (2004) is now turning out one unnecessary revisit after another.