The Crazies

“The Crazies” is an intense, enjoyable, and surprisingly clever vision of a zombie apocalypse in rural America that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do; raise your blood pressure, clench your teeth, and make you high-five the stranger next to you. Maximizing its low-budget special effects, “The Crazies” successfully remakes the 1973 George A. Romero cult classic of the same name by stringing together a series of frightening and gory situations while simultaneously—and unexpectedly—presenting uncommonly deep themes for the genre.

What happens when a U.S. military plane carrying a chemical weapon (codenamed “Trixie”), meant to “destabilize a population,” crashes, and accidently releases the weapon into the water supply of the pleasant, unassuming town of Ogden Marsh, Iowa? Turns out people go a little crazy.

By providing the rare gift of a compelling back-story, “The Crazies” allows the audience to understand why Iowans are becoming insanely violent zombies (for the record, the infected are not technically zombies, but ultimately there’s no difference). Too often screenwriters and directors are given free passes to avoid presenting any exposition, but here, director Breck Eisner (whose last wide-release was box-office bomb “Sahara”) treats the audience to a story with such plausibility and intelligence that it evokes a very realistic fear. The film is also co-written and produced by Romero, the godfather of zombie movies (“Night of the Living Dead,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “Day of the Dead”) who lends a guiding hand in reimagining his most underrated film.

After a simple incident of crowd interference in a baseball game, Ogden Marsh is stripped of any peace or tranquility. When the town drunk stumbles onto the baseball field carrying his shotgun, Sherriff David Dutton, played by the first-rate Timothy Olyphant (known best as the porn producer in “The Girl Next Door” and the cyber-terrorist in “Live Free or Die Hard”) confronts and eventually guns down the inexplicably aggressive drunk, as the entire town attentively stares through the baseball diamond’s chain link fence. The scene juxtaposes the previously calm state of the town with its nightmarish future. As the chemical spreads through the water supply, Sherriff Dutton, accompanied by his pregnant wife, Dr. Judy Dutten (Rhada Mitchell) and Deputy Sherriff Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) must find a way to survive.

Ogden Marsh is immediately and unknowingly placed under quarantine by the military in order to prevent a global pandemic. Dutten and his crew must not only avoid raging zombies but trigger-happy, flame-throwing, gas-masked soldiers. Olyphant is no newcomer to the big screen, but his acting ability and future prospects should not be questioned; his performance in the film is capped off by a memorable one-liner that is sure to have audiences cheering.

As the film progresses, paranoia begins to influence the actions of the protagonists, as the fear of infection erodes their trust for one another, ultimately testing the strength of Dutten’s relationship with his best friend and his wife.  The couple have little romantic chemistry, but Dutten and Clank’s unique working relationship provides a depth of personal character development rarely found in action movies, let alone zombie flicks. The mounting lack of trust between the characters progresses in epic fashion with the actors perfectly executing their unexpectedly complex roles.

Trust of the government, trust of friends and family, and trust of oneself are questioned as infection spreads and eventually manifests itself in both the physical and psychological states of the characters. Though the film is not without its plot twists and necessary in-your-face gore, it improves upon typical genre fare by creatively turning everyday situations into brutal nightmares; no viewer will ever, ever go through a carwash again without checking for crazies. One thing is for sure: “The Crazies” will please and scare both newcomers and the zombie-genre faithful.