For a high suspense horror film, "The Crazies" begins at a calm pace with creepy characters and slick snapshots of conspiracy theory. But then Breck Eisner, the director, and the writers zoom in on individual kill segments and chase the main character, Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), and his party of survivors around a rural farming town (Ogden Marsh, Iowa). The kills are a bit inventive at times, but the rescues are definitely not. It isn't a zombie film, Eisner opting instead for the contagion route: the town's people start behaving sometimes like silent, disoriented lunatics and sometimes like ruthless stalkers. But the attempts at paranoia – in a weak effort to exploit the virus so that the survivors won't know who to trust – are mostly confusing and didn't cause enough genuine feelings of deception.
A gradual increase in suspense, however, is well done, especially in the terrific opening sequences. At a baseball game, a local man, named Rory Hamill, wanders onto the field with a drunken, crazy look and a rifle. A little later another local, Bill Farnum (Brett Rickaby), sits oddly at a doctor's office as if he's gone mad. Clever details ensue as Bill's son hides in a closet and tells his mother he saw dad with a knife. Bill creeps up the steps and locks his wife and son in a closet, torching the house on his way out.
These sequences have a genuine sense of paranoia. Rory slowly wandering onto the baseball field is weird enough to make us wonder who is next. But elsewhere the "crazies" mostly run around as wild and aggressive killers. Not to sound like Yoda, but paranoia requires deception and deception requires you to mistake craziness for normality. It's a difficult trick to pull off. It works with Rory and Bill initially, but ultimately it fails. It's difficult to leave time for error when you are busy running away from a crazy person with a pitch fork.
As the military try to control the situation with extreme measures, the story stays with the perspective of Sheriff Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), his wife Judy (Radha Mitchell), and his deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson). The three of them break out of military quarantine and try to find a way out of town, and past the military patrols, blockades, watchful helicopters, and communication blackouts. In George A. Romero's original 1973 version, the military was central to the story. Here the story spirals into the personal mayhem experienced by the Sheriff's party of survivors.
Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) also starts acting erratically and a bit aggressively with his rifle, but it isn't clear whether he's just being careful, reactive (out of fear), or aggressive due to the contagion. What are the symptoms for being crazy anyways? For him to deceive us and give us a genuine feeling of paranoia (to the point of having nightmares over our next door neighbor turning into a "crazy"), we would need better information about how the symptoms work and whether he has them. It simply isn't clear that he does.
Together the four of them walk through streets of fire and debris. They sometimes hide to avoid the military or the townsfolk. For example, they watch three odd characters hunting crazies. Or are they crazies themselves? It isn't clear, but for the rest of the film most anyone who is crazy, military, or outsider is out to harm anyone in their path. The military becomes especially destructive as they lose control of the situation. And since zombies aren't specifically involved, the "crazies" can use a bit of intelligence and a ready supply of lethal weapons (pitch forks, saws, knives, and guns) to add variety to the kill segments. The local school principal turns particularly ruthless with a pitch fork; hopefully not as a result of a writer's bad experience in school.
The film tries increasing the tension with extreme paranoia (as best done by "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "The Thing"), but it gives us frightful kill scenes and maniacs instead, none of which deceive us to the degree of paranoia. Timothy Olyphant (from "Deadwood" and "Live Free or Die Hard") fits the role of the main survivor well. The best parts are perhaps the gradual opening scenes and small town charm, and it also has a couple conspiratorial special effect shots of satellite monitoring. Many of the kill segments are suspenseful and chilling for fans of slasher type horror. We get perfect locations for scare tactics, including a remote car wash and a truck station, and the kill scenes have sufficient moments of silent stalking to keep you on the edge of your seat.
A gradual increase in suspense, however, is well done, especially in the terrific opening sequences. At a baseball game, a local man, named Rory Hamill, wanders onto the field with a drunken, crazy look and a rifle. A little later another local, Bill Farnum (Brett Rickaby), sits oddly at a doctor's office as if he's gone mad. Clever details ensue as Bill's son hides in a closet and tells his mother he saw dad with a knife. Bill creeps up the steps and locks his wife and son in a closet, torching the house on his way out.
These sequences have a genuine sense of paranoia. Rory slowly wandering onto the baseball field is weird enough to make us wonder who is next. But elsewhere the "crazies" mostly run around as wild and aggressive killers. Not to sound like Yoda, but paranoia requires deception and deception requires you to mistake craziness for normality. It's a difficult trick to pull off. It works with Rory and Bill initially, but ultimately it fails. It's difficult to leave time for error when you are busy running away from a crazy person with a pitch fork.
As the military try to control the situation with extreme measures, the story stays with the perspective of Sheriff Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), his wife Judy (Radha Mitchell), and his deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson). The three of them break out of military quarantine and try to find a way out of town, and past the military patrols, blockades, watchful helicopters, and communication blackouts. In George A. Romero's original 1973 version, the military was central to the story. Here the story spirals into the personal mayhem experienced by the Sheriff's party of survivors.
Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) also starts acting erratically and a bit aggressively with his rifle, but it isn't clear whether he's just being careful, reactive (out of fear), or aggressive due to the contagion. What are the symptoms for being crazy anyways? For him to deceive us and give us a genuine feeling of paranoia (to the point of having nightmares over our next door neighbor turning into a "crazy"), we would need better information about how the symptoms work and whether he has them. It simply isn't clear that he does.
Together the four of them walk through streets of fire and debris. They sometimes hide to avoid the military or the townsfolk. For example, they watch three odd characters hunting crazies. Or are they crazies themselves? It isn't clear, but for the rest of the film most anyone who is crazy, military, or outsider is out to harm anyone in their path. The military becomes especially destructive as they lose control of the situation. And since zombies aren't specifically involved, the "crazies" can use a bit of intelligence and a ready supply of lethal weapons (pitch forks, saws, knives, and guns) to add variety to the kill segments. The local school principal turns particularly ruthless with a pitch fork; hopefully not as a result of a writer's bad experience in school.
The film tries increasing the tension with extreme paranoia (as best done by "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "The Thing"), but it gives us frightful kill scenes and maniacs instead, none of which deceive us to the degree of paranoia. Timothy Olyphant (from "Deadwood" and "Live Free or Die Hard") fits the role of the main survivor well. The best parts are perhaps the gradual opening scenes and small town charm, and it also has a couple conspiratorial special effect shots of satellite monitoring. Many of the kill segments are suspenseful and chilling for fans of slasher type horror. We get perfect locations for scare tactics, including a remote car wash and a truck station, and the kill scenes have sufficient moments of silent stalking to keep you on the edge of your seat.