Directed By Breck Eisner
Starring Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell and Joe Anderson
Something’s wrong in the town of Ogden Marsh. Townsfolk are slowly becoming unresponsive and dazed, losing grip on reality before their brains are permanently overridden by an insatiable, insane lust for violence. Sounds like an average night out in London, but for Ogden Marsh it’s a potential apocalyptic pandemic. As the military seals off the town, Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) gathers together his doctor wife Judy (Radha Mitchell), her teenage medical assistant Becca (Danielle Panabaker) and his trusty Deputy Russell (Joe Anderson) as they band together in attempt to survive the rapidly-spreading homicidal epidemic, make it outside the quarantine zone to safety and avoid getting messily murdered by the roaming infected “crazies” in the process.
Director Zack Snyder seemingly set a precedent when he made his surprisingly great 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead that evidently every future big-screen George Romero re-tread has to open with a Johnny Cash song. That’s not all that Breck Eisner borrows from Dawn’s cinematic bag of remake tricks; the use of stylized visual filtering doesn’t feel too far afield from Snyder’s movie, nor does the ditching of Romero’s trademark slant of social commentary in favour of lean, action-centric horror thrills. Sadly, Eisner and screenwriter duo Scott Kosar and Ray Wright do a little too much pruning, tossing out character and logic along the way in their goal to give the original a more punchy, action-packed and enjoyable update.
There’s no apparent rhyme or reason to the sickness. People who should’ve contracted the infection simply don’t; one character has a knife soaked in still-warm infected blood plunged through his hand but avoids infection somehow, while the film gives details of an incubation period for the virus, then goes on to ignore it completely. The symptoms of the disease shift and change to suit the plot, too, as the “crazies” sometimes act like rabid, feral kill-machines, often they’re catatonic, lumbering zombies and occasionally they’re perfectly coherant, talkative nutjobs – whatever the occasion calls for. There’s a potent, crippling drinking game to be found in the film’s over-use of often nonsensical hand-on-the-shoulder jump scares (Olyphant evidently teleports into an enclosed storage cupboard to pop up behind Mitchell for an intensely dumb fake-out shock). Eisner steers away from any real character drama and neglects to capitalise on the potential for ‘Are they infected?’ paranoia, too, resulting in a pared-down shocker that’s little more than a conveyor belt of action set-pieces.
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Still, Eisner’s film might be a popcorn flick that’s light on character and sense, heavy on action, but it helps that those set pieces are creatively staged and incredibly fun. With a fast pace and a streak of inventively orchestrated death and mayhem, from car wash hi-jinks, maniacs with power saws, to an amazingly great knife-meets-throat scene, The Crazies doesn’t leave much time for boredom or pondering the plot holes as it unleashes explosive, gruesome chaos at a steady speed. Amidst all the cheap jump scares, the film finds time to be genuinely tense and unnerving, too – a scene involving a pitchfork-wielding crazy loose in a medical ward especially. It doesn’t hurt that Eisner has assembled a pretty fantastic cast, either. Panabaker is given nothing to do but scream and stand around looking imperilled, and Radha Mitchell isn’t afforded much more of a role, but Olyphant and Anderson make a riveting double act. Olyphant’s old-fashioned, gruff, soft-spoken badass act is second nature at this point, and while the quality of writing pales in comparison to his similar role in the amazing Justified, he’s still a joy to watch and does wonders with little material. Joe Anderson makes an even stronger impression as loyal Deputy Russell, who becomes a powder keg of unhinged intensity as the film unfolds.
It’s hardly a classic, and is let down by some lazy writing and non-existent logic, but as a slick, tense and creatively gruesome action thriller, The Crazies is a minor triumph. It’s an unfortunate shame that Eisner and his screenwriters didn’t take the time to inject more character and intelligence in amongst the bloodshed, but even so, The Crazies is a fun and effective crowd-pleaser that speeds through its problems fast enough to be immensely entertaining throughout.
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On the Blu-ray:
Momentum’s Blu-ray release looks and sounds as fantastic as you’d expect with it being a recent major movie. The visuals look clear and detailed, with a little grain (presumably down to Maxime Alexandre intentionally filtered look), though the great visuals do tend to highlight the film’s few dodgy CG shots in the third act. The audio track is wonderful too, adding an added layer of tension to the film’s more effective scenes, the car wash chaos and the first appearance of the crazed hunters on Main Street being particularly impressive aurally. The audio is immersive without being overwhelming; for all the jump scares, thankfully they’re not accompanied by the standard ear-piercingly shrill ‘stinger’ that usually signals a left-field shock.
The Blu-ray is crammed with extras, too. There’s an audio commentary from director Breck Eisner that’s surprisingly in-depth and offers up a wealth of detail on the production. There’s also a wide array of behind-the-scenes featurettes, a couple of which cover visual effects and make-up, while there’s a welcome feature on George Romero and a segment on real-life pandemics and the film’s premise. There’s some repetition between the commentary and the ‘Making of’ stuff, but mostly it’s a cut above the usual EPK fluff. Also included are the motion comic, offering up a little backstory surrounding the outbreak of the virus, and while nothing spectacular, it’s a neat addition. Rounding out the extras are the usual trailers and photo galleries. Sadly the alternative ending mentioned on the commentary isn’t included, but otherwise it’s an impressive release for fans of the film.
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The Crazies is available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray now.
Click here to order the Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk.
(Note: The images above were captured and saved at a reduced quality, and though they give an idea of how the film looks, they aren’t intended to reflect the true quality of the Blu-ray image itself.)
