We’ve all imagined it – the world becomes an infested with a mutant zombie population. We’ve plotted our escape route, we’ve armed ourselves to the teeth with guns and machetes, hell we’ve revised and memorised all the rules on how to stay alive but now comes a new threat, and something we hadn’t planned on – a surprise attack…from people we’d never expect…
The town of Ogden Marsh in the state of Iowa is one of those small sleepy towns where nothing bad happens (but we all know that only really bad awful evil supernatural and diabolical things always happen in small towns), everyone knows each other and neighbours are best of friends and no one locks their doors.
All of that changes however when a toxin begins to infect the townspeople, turning them into deranged psychopaths with a serious thirst for murder and who better to murder than their friends and family.
Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his doctor wife Judy (Radha Mitchell) are two of only a handful of town’s people not infected by the toxic virus but they are now trapped in a town they once called home and hunted by killers they once called friends. It only gets worse for the pair when the US military show up and begin to open fire on everything that moves, be they infected or a survivor. Together they must try and survive the nightmare if they are ever to escape and uncover the truth behind the deadly toxin that ravages their town.
You might recognise Timothy from other horrors such as ‘Scream 2’ and ‘Dreamcatcher’ as well as his role in the video game turned movie, ‘Hitman’. He fits rather comfortably into the role of the main character and his performance is only overshadowed by the actual gruesome death scenes. His co-star, Radha Mitchell is also no stranger to the horror movie genre, starring as Rose Da Silva in the ‘Silent Hill’ movie and in ‘Pitch Black’ with Vin Diesel.
The plot itself is nothing new to a horror fan, if you’ve seen one zombie/psycho-toxic virus movie you’ve seen them all but director Breck Eisner at the very least does not screw up the George A Romero classic movie. Eisner in fact brings his own flare to the role of director and we will admit that we did flinch once or twice and will never look at a wheat thrasher the same way ever again.
We were extremely impressed by the special effects make up used for the movie. The minds behind it and the hands that constructed it all came from the guys over at Almost Human Studios (some of their other work includes, Prom Night and Quarantine). Not your typical psychopath zombies the effect of the ‘Trixie’ virus (yes that’s the name of the toxin, not exactly menacing calling it after a pole dancer but let’s just get over it) is found underneath the skin, with bulging veins and arteries, discoloured and bulging eyes and greying skin – it took more than 3 hours for the team to complete a single infection in its final stage, so kudos to the special effects artists.
If you are in the mood for a good scare and psychopathic neighbours then ‘The Crazies’ is definitely worth a watch, if you aren’t a fan of the old B movies and gore flicks then we’d suggest steering clear of it unless you want to scare the living daylights out of yourself. It might not be the greatest remake ever made but we thoroughly enjoyed it and we won’t be so willing to lend our neighbours that bowl of sugar from now on…and if we do we’ll make sure to answer the door in a bulletproof vest first…
The Crazies is available to rent now.
