Mmmmm brains. Zombies are a horror phenomenon that we just keep going back to the well for. These sorts of movies have been made regularly for decades, and fairly recent films like 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland and the Resident Evil series show that audiences haven’t found the lumbering antagonists stale or unoriginal yet – despite very little changing in the overall formula. Will audiences feel the same way about The Crazies?
When a biological weapon is accidentally unleashed on Ogden Marsh, Iowa, all hell breaks loose as its inhabitants are transformed into monstrous, insane, pitchfork-wielding killers. Can our band of heroes escape the madness in one piece? Can they?!
Horror enthusiasts will probably already know that this film is based on George Romero’s 1973 film of the same name. It needs to be said up front (just to clarify) that despite Romero’s notoriety as being “the zombie guy” (and any reference in this article to the film being a “zombie movie”), that the infected citizens of Ogden Marsh (“Crazies”) are not actually zombies – even though they more or less give off a zombie vibe as they wordlessly shamble around the town, killing anyone who cross their path. Still, this movie, for all intents and purposes, is a “zombie movie” in its style and basic premise – just without that pesky brain eating. On to the reviewing.
In all fairness, this was not a terrible movie. There were refreshing moments of dark humour throughout the piece which let the audience know that the filmmakers weren’t taking this thing too seriously. Gore effects were also pretty decent and having the Crazies retain their intelligence (despite their bat-shit insanity) set up far more elaborate deaths than a zombie could muster. However, even with all these pros, the movie as a whole was fairly weak.
It’s not so much that the writing is particularly horrible or that the acting is embarrassingly bad that causes this movie to falter. The major flaw with this film is just how apathetic you will feel toward everything going on in front of you. Despite the main characters being in horrible situations and people being mutilated left and right, the film fails to generate much in the way of any tension or suspense. Any scares in this movie are cheap ones, like a hand just out of frame grabbing someone’s shoulder, or a wide-angled shot panning to a creepy Crazy lingering in the background. These devices are used over and over, and the audience soon learns to expect them, which makes the film incredibly tiresome. Let’s put it this way: if you took a shot every time the movie attempted a cheap scare on you, you’d be wrecked by the halfway mark.
But ultimately, a viewer will simply watch the events unfold, wait for the end, walk away, and never think about the movie again. It’s not awful, but it’s completely generic and bland in its overall presentation. Other movies have tackled this genre before and have done it far better (again, 28 Days Later comes to mind), so there’s really no reason why someone should waste their time on a subpar imitation.
As far as remakes go, The Crazies could have been far worse, but ranking as a mediocre, clichéd piece of lesser-zombie cinema, you’d be pretty nuts to go out of your way to see it.
