The Crazies

The Crazies opens with a scene of Main Street in Ogden Marsh, Iowa and it is ablaze. Bodies are strewn in the street, cars destroyed, and there’s not a soul in site. Clearly something horrible has already happened, but what?

The story then picks up two days earlier with David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), the Sheriff of Ogden Marsh, which is actually a sleepy, idyllic, farming community. While Sheriff Dutton and most of the town are at the town’s baseball field watching the Ogden Marsh high school baseball game, a disheveled man (aptly name Rory) walks into the field of play brandishing a shotgun looking dazed and confused. When Sheriff Dutton confronts him, Rory doesn’t seem even recognize his own name and he raises the shotgun at Dutton – who proceeds to blow him away in right field. Bummer, dude, I guess that means the game’s over.

It turns out that Rory had a past as the town drunk, so Sheriff Dutton assumes that Rory fell off the wagon. Rory’s family can’t believe it, and sure enough Rory’s blood alcohol content comes back negative – in fact, 0.0 (insert Animal House joke), leaving Dutton to wonder what exactly drove Rory to go nuts.

At this point we’re introduced to Sherrif Dutton’s wife, the town doctor, Judy Dutton (Radha Mitchell). She’s treating a patient, Bill Farnum, who by his own admission isn’t “all there”, in a stupor of some kind. He seems eerily Rory-like – but his vital signs are fine. Dr. Dutton sends him home with his wife and recommends that Bill come back in for a CAT scan in a couple days. Unfortunately, Bill goes home that night and kills his wife and son. Um, yeah, he’s probably gonna have to miss that appointment.

A few rednecks are out in the marsh hunting illegally when they come across a dead man tangled up in a parachute. Even though the men were poaching, they call it in. The sheriff and his stalwart Deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) investigate. The dead man is a pilot which leads the further into the swamp looking for the plane. Sure enough they find it submerged under water, and it’s big enough that the crash should’ve been reported by someone. There must be a reason why this plane crash has been kept such a secret.

Murderous patriarch Bill is still locked in a jail cell, but now almost completely catatonic, that is when he’s not trying his damndest to kill someone. Because Rory and Bill both lived on the outskirts of town, Sheriff Dutton begins to suspect that the plane he discovered was carrying something toxic which has contaminated the town’s water supply and is responsible for the illnesses that have befallen both men. Dutton brings this to the attention of the mayor, and requests that they shut off the water to the entire town until they can determine if it has become contaminated. As it turns out, Dutton is correct – the plane was carrying a secret, biological, government weapon. Unfortunately the mayor adheres to the time honored film cliché which mandates that he must completely dismiss every piece of the advice he receives from the sheriff, regardless of how many lives it could save. At the risk of his job, Dutton shuts down the town’s water tower, but as we’ll find out, it’s already too late.

This interesting set-up kicks off the second act of the film, wherein soldiers in gas masks and Hazmat suits swarm upon Ogden Marsh in an effort to quarantine the town. It becomes obvious that the government is less concerned about the well-being of the 1,200 some odd citizens of Ogden Marsh and more concerned about preventing the virus from spreading outside of the town and causing a pandemic. Go figure.

Soldiers arrive to block off all the roads out of town. They gather up all of the citizens in a makeshift holding pen where they perform a quick test on everyone to determine if they’re infected. Families are torn apart unceremoniously, as the infected are quickly quarantined. Sheriff Dutton and his wife Judy are rounded up along everyone else, and of course, they are separated. Judy has been running a fever because she is pregnant. Nevertheless, she’s culled from the herd, leading to increased levels of melodrama. Those who are deemed to be uninfected are led away to buses, and supposedly shuttled away to safety. Dutton can’t bear the thought of leaving his wife, infected or not, so he and deputy Clank sneak back into the compound. At this time all hell is breaks lose when a truck charges through the holding pen and hundreds of supposedly infected people rush escape. The soldiers quickly evacuate their base en masse, fleeing on their helicopters and leaving the town overrun with maniacs running amok.

From here, the movie follows the efforts of the Duttons, Deputy Clank, and Dr. Dutton’s receptionist Becca (Danielle Panabaker) as they try to escape the madness of Ogden Marsh for Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If you’ve seen a horror before – any horror movie – you won’t likely be surprised by what follows. Characters go off on idiotic tangents to save people who are probably already dead, or soon will be. The mounting tension of their situation leads the members of the group to clash, and then naturally wonder who amongst group is infected. If the situation calls for complete silence, someone in the group will make too much noise and yell, even when they shouldn’t. If your inner monologue isn’t screaming at these people by the end of the film then you’re a far better person than I.

This film, directed by Breck Eisner, has some visual flair and decent effects, but it’s woefully short on delivering the promised amount of craziness. For the most part, the actors acquit themselves well. Timothy Olyphant is a solid actor, adept in the genre, and performs well, as always. Joe Anderson as Deputy Clank, steals scenes at will, and provides some much needed humor with his performance. Radha Mitchell is no stranger to the horror scene herself with Silent Hill and the underrated Rogue to her credit. She is reduced to such cringe-inducing histrionics that you will wish her character dead every time she is in peril, which is about every 5 minutes or so. Danielle Panabaker is an underdeveloped character whom no one should expect to survive this ordeal, but *spoiler alert!* when her character finally bites the big one she does so in such a predictable and hilarious way that I had to laugh – a lot. No doubt the guy sitting next to me in the theater wondered if my water supply had been contaminated…

With a juiced up premise like this—a remake of the original, 1973 film of the same name directed by the Godfather of Gore, George Romero—I was expecting more from The Crazies. It’s actually kind of tame, and that was a huge disappointment. Some of “the crazies” aren’t even that crazy – unlike the catatonic psychos Rory and Bill, the crazies at the end of the film have conversations and use logic and reason. Frankly, some seem less homicidal and come off more like ornery assholes who just quit smoking. I’m sure many an hour could be spent discussing how far-advanced a character’s infection was – blah blah blah. One of the main character’s becomes clearly infected and yet still manages to get a hold of their senses and even act heroically. Basically, the virus just affects people differently depending on the needs of the story and the importance of the character. Whatever.

The thing that struck me most is that none of the characters whom we follow throughout the movie question – even for a minute – whether or not they should survive. They never consider the fact that, while they might live, their very survival might cause a global pandemic by spreading their disease to another population. Easier said than done, I suppose; but you’d think that it would at least cross someone’s mind. The government soldiers, with one notable exception, are portrayed as cold-blooded and ruthless in their attempts to contain the virus because they will stop at nothing to do so. I couldn’t help but think that they were doing exactly what needed to be done. In some way I was rooting against the protagonists for the entire movie.

The Crazies • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 • Running Time: 101 minutes • MPAA Rating: R for bloody violence and language. • Distributed by Overture Films