Crazies, The MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +2 Content: -4

Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Danielle Panabaker. Horror. Written by Scott Kosar, Ray Wright. Directed by Breck Eisner.

FILM SYNOPSIS: A picture-perfect town is suddenly filled with unexplainable violent acts. One man comes to a baseball game with a loaded shotgun, ready to kill. Another burns down his own house--after locking his wife and young son in a closet inside. Within days, the whole town has transformed into a sickening asylum; people who days ago lived quiet, unremarkable lives have now become depraved, blood-thirsty killers, hiding in the darkness with guns and knives. And who is behind it? Well, we don’t learn it until the third act, and a reviewer shouldn’t give away a plot point. I can say that it is an airborne virus, but I really can’t tell you who accidentally launched it on its own people rather than on the bad guys.

PREVIEW REVIEW: What does it say about today’s moviemakers/moviegoers when a remake of a zombie movie has to be gorier and more profane than one made by frightmeister George Romero? Renown for Night of the Living Dead, his 1973 The Crazies was a swipe at the military, the thing to do in ’72. But even his version was muddled, not really a satire, nor a coherent social statement. And neither is the updated version. It’s gorier, bloodier and certainly more profane (with 11 misuses of God’s or Christ’s name, mostly by the two leads).

To be fair, it’s not an official zombie movie. It’s just that when the folks start getting sick, they go into a trance, their bodies become corpse-like, they want to kill everybody else, and they start voting Republican. (A joke, I had to lay off the Democrats.) The film is a real armrest grabber, it moves with good pacing and builds its paranoid tension successfully, but it’s more gruesome than eerie, more depressing than scary.

DVD Alternative: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the 1956 version with Kevin McCarthy – pass on the dumbed-down and obscenity-laced 1978 remake). If you’re looking for a truly unnerving thriller, this is the one. An entire town is systematically replaced by pod people. Only one man knows the truth. But no one will believe him – until it’s too late.

Or try: Dr. Strangelove. I mention this one because at the opening of The Crazies, we hear the song, We’ll Meet Again, a ditty used at the apocalyptic ending of the brilliant Stanley Kubrick satire. This very dark comedy concerns a military commander who goes, “well, a little funny in the head,” and launches a hydrogen bomb aimed at Russia. Kubrick’s comedy pokes fun at politicians and the absurdity of war. Peter Sellers, George C. Scott head intrepid cast. (Caution: Adult subject matter).

Preview Reviewer: Phil Boatwright
Distributor: Overture Films