I just got back from seeing the remake of The Crazies and as I was with the original, I’m a little disappointed. I watched the original George Romero version of the film a few months ago and found that it doesn’t really hold up to time. Romero went a different route with The Crazies than he did with Night of The Living Dead and while it may have worked at the time, I don’t feel that it’s as good today. I know I’ll probably get some flack for that since I know there are a lot of fans of the original out there, but I found myself pretty bored after awhile and to be honest, I felt the same way with the remake.
The basic story is that a town becomes infected by some sort of virus that is turning the people in the town, crazy. They begin to lose all self control and develop “zombie-like” symptoms and attributes, but are far from zombies. They still seem to have a sense of what’s going on, but can’t seem to control it… they just go crazy. In the midst of all this, the government/military steps in to quarantine to the town to keep the virus from spreading. The sheriff and his wife, amongst a few others, manage to escape the military and make their way towards the edge of town… and that’s the gist of it.
While the original version followed the sheriff and his wife, the deputy and another woman, it also dealt a lot with the military response and what was going on with the commanders of the operation, etc. This new version seems to drop all aspects of that and focuses on the escapees alone. There’s still a large military presence as the virus begins to attack the towns people, but we don’t get any incite into what is going on with the chain of command within the military. So that was one aspect that I didn’t like about the film, the other thing was that the trailers are very misleading. I kind of knew what to expect based on seeing the original, but the trailers that I’ve been seeing on TV make this movie out to be something like 28 Days Later, with fast moving infected/zombie-like people ravaging people and ripping them to shreds, but that’s not what you get at all. There are a lot of slow moments and no real big payoff at the end so I would definitely be a little cautious if you’re expecting some sort of intense fast moving zombie-like action, cause you’re not going to get it.
I didn’t hate the film, but I can’t say that I really enjoyed it. I was actually quite bored at times and couldn’t wait for it to be over, but my buddy seemed to enjoy it for the most part. So I guess just know what you’re going into and take it for what it’s worth. Personally, I would recommend waiting and giving this one a rent if you need to see it.
