The Crazies (2010) - Will's Review

NOTE: In honour of Halloween, We're taking a break from the TimeOut 100 Greatest Best Horror Movies.

This month, reviewers have boon given a free choice of any horror movie they haven't yet seen.

Opening with a wrecked town, demolished and burning, we cut to 2 days ago, and see the soon-to-be destroyed Ogden Marsh, as thean idealic, quiet, town it has always been... But something started infecting the residents, making them irrational and violent. The first of these "crazies" is shot by the police after walking onto a baseball pitch, apparently drunk, sporting a shotgun. Before   first shot is even fired, we see that someone is watching the town via satellite.



We follow a small group of seemingly unaffected people as they work out what is happening to their town, and eventually have to flee the military presence keeping "containing" the situation/

George A. Romaro produces this remake of his own 1973 movie of the same name, although I haven't seen the original, his thumbprint is certainly on this one.

It becomes obvious early on that the government is somehow responsible for the infection, and so Romaro's trademark politicising comes into play quickly. It's interesting that a commentary on the mile try complex C1973 seems as relevant as ever today (it's my understanding that little of that side of things was changed).

It would have been easy to make this another zombie movie in all but name (much as 28 Days later did - the infected were clearly zombies in all but heartbeat), but hear here the infection makes people angry and irrational, but clearly human.

Effects wise, there's not much to shout about, but what there is is well done, and the cast are certainly competent all in all, it's a perfectly fine movie.

Not great, but certainly good enough to be worth watching.