The setting is Ogden Marsh, a small, rural farming community in Iowa, and all initially seems well: the spring weather is fine and baseball season is just kicking off. We meet Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant, "Deadwood") as he's about to watch the first high school game of the season, surrounded by many of the local townsfolk in the stands. Things go awry pretty quickly, as the game is interrupted by a man wandering onto the field, armed with a double-barreled shotgun. Unable to talk the man into disarming himself, the sheriff is forced to shoot him, as the people in the stands watch in horror and disbelief. This disconcerting incident is the first in an escalating series of shocking acts committed by otherwise mild-mannered citizens: a man burns his family alive in their farmhouse, the local mortician desecrates bodies, and a trio of hunters begins stalking human prey. It turns out that a military transport plane has crashed nearby, releasing a lethal biological agent into the town's water supply, and the folks who have been drinking the water have begun going, well, crazy.
The question of what's causing the chaos is resolved fairly early in the film, and it's not really the interesting part of the story anyway. What's interesting is the arrival of the military and how their attempt to contain the situation goes terribly wrong, leaving a handful of seemingly-healthy citizens - David, his pregnant wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell, "Silent Hill"), who is also the town doctor, David's deputy, Russell, and Judy's young office assistant, Becca - to make a frenzied and perilous trek to try to escape from the doomed town. Along the way they must fight off neighbors bent on killing them - or worse - and hide out from the military, which may ultimately have the same goal in mind. There remains, of course, the question of whether any of the four escapees is in fact infected, and this lends an undercurrent of paranoia to their increasingly desperate escape attempt.
"The Crazies", sensationalistic title aside, is well written and produced, making it a satisfying entry in the line of horror remakes that have been cropping up lately. Mr. Olyphant is a strong lead, bringing an earthy practicality to the role of the small-town sheriff. Ms. Mitchell, who worked with similar material in "Silent Hill", makes everything she goes through here seem uncomfortably believable. The editing in the action scenes is particularly efficient, and it is gratifying to watch a hand-to-hand struggle between two or more characters when you can tell at every moment where everyone is and exactly what is happening; no super-fast cuts or digital blurring here. It is also worth noting that, though the deaths being depicted are unquestionably gruesome, they are never played for laughs or lingered over in an exploitive manner. The word "restrained" comes to mind - and that's quite an accomplishment for a movie that shows someone getting a pitchfork stabbed through their chest.
| Movie title | The Crazies |
|---|---|
| Release year | 2010 |
| MPAA Rating | R |
| Our rating | |
| Summary | Solid updating of George Romero's 1973 horror movie about a small town infected by a biological agent. |
