After a strange and insecure plane crash, an unusual toxic virus enters a quaint farming town. A young couple are quarantined, but they fight for survival along with help from a couple of people.
The military attempts to contain a manmade combat virus that causes death and permanent insanity in those infected, as it overtakes a small Pennsylvania town.
Director:
George A. Romero
Stars:
Lane Carroll,
Will MacMillan,
Harold Wayne Jones
A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.
Six months after the rage virus was inflicted on the population of Great Britain, the US Army helps to secure a small area of London for the survivors to repopulate and start again. But not everything goes according to plan.
A television reporter and her cameraman are trapped inside a building quarantined by the CDC, after the outbreak of a mysterious virus which turns humans into bloodthirsty killers.
Director:
John Erick Dowdle
Stars:
Jennifer Carpenter,
Steve Harris,
Columbus Short
A loan officer who evicts an old woman from her home finds herself the recipient of a supernatural curse. Desperate, she turns to a seer to try and save her soul, while evil forces work to push her to a breaking point.
As a toxin begins to turn the residents of Ogden Marsh, Iowa into violent psychopaths, sheriff David Dutton tries to make sense of the situation while he, his wife, and two other unaffected townspeople band together in a fight for survival.Written by
ahmetkozan
The film opens with the song "We'll Meet Again," as performed by Johnny Cash. The song is from the same album that provided "The Man Comes Around," which opened another remake of a George A. Romero film, Dawn of the Dead (2004). The album is "American IV", the last full album Cash released before his death. "The Man Comes Around" and "We'll Meet Again" are the opening and closing tracks, respectively. See more »
Goofs
When the Sheriff and Deputy are hiding in the Sheriffs office. The deputy loads his shotgun, the last shell he pushes in falls out again in his lap just before he cocks the weapon. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Becca Darling:
Um, Dr. Dutton, my aunt's in town.
Judy Dutton:
Um hmm...
Becca Darling:
And she's sick too.
Judy Dutton:
Phew, I'm going to need you to stay late tonight. You know, you should probably text your aunt - Scotty - and tell him you can't make it to the baseball game tonight.
See more »
Crazy Credits
A scene concerning the fate of Ogden Marsh appears during the closing credits. See more »
This remake of the 1973 George Romero film sees the rural Iowa town of Ogden Marsh become unhinged when it's residents begin exhibiting odd behavior, usually culminating in acts of violence. Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) is at a loss to explain what's happening to the people he's known all his life, but the discovery of a dead pilot in a marsh leads him to the answer, a downed plane infecting the town's water supply. It isn't long before the military has blocked all methods of communication and descended upon the town. Determined to render a final solution, they don't intend to let anyone out alive.
Following the basic setup of the original, this update expands upon the story and throws in a few new directions and surprises. If you ask me, there was plenty of room for improvement. Romero's film is decent, but highly flawed. You could blame the budget, but Romero's done some fantastic work with low budgets. It definitely had bigger problems than that. This is the type of remake I wish there were more of, the type that can improve on a weak original. We spend the majority of the film with the four main characters as they attempt to escape the madness; David, his wife (Radha Mitchell), his deputy (Joe Anderson) and his wife's secretary (Danielle Pannabaker). I was already a fan of both Olyphant and the lovely Mitchell before viewing this, and they're once again in solid form here. This is basically Olyphant's show, and he owns the screen when he's on. I'd love to see him get more leading roles after this. Anderson and Pannabaker are also impressive, getting me to care about the fates of their characters, something that many horror films have a hard time doing. One of the major differences between this and the Romero original is the lack of focus on the military's point of view this time around. We spend the duration seeing the events from the perspective of the leads and various other townsfolk. While the POV shown in the '73 film did offer some levels of interest, I think it works better as far as menace goes to not do that here.
The crazies themselves are well rendered, each person reacting differently to the virus. Some are completely gone while others still retain some semblance of a thought process, the hunters for instance. After seeing the trailer, I was worried that they'd turn this into another zombie movie, but I was happy to see that wasn't the case. Speaking of the crazies, Lynn Lowry (of the original, Shivers, I Drink Your Blood, etc.) pops up very briefly as one of them. A nice little nod there, and I noticed another potential nod to a similar film, 1984's Impulse, in which contaminated milk leads people to act on their base impulses. A scene of Olyphant running after a mysterious vehicle that has been documenting the carnage mirrors a sequence from that picture. Also of note is Maxime Alexandre's gorgeous cinematography. Eisner was smart in getting him, as he's done equally stellar work for Alexandre Aja in the past. Thankfully, the use of CGI is minimal. In fact, I don't believe any pops up until the end, and when we get to that, it actually works just fine.
The film is peppered with a number of suitably tense set-pieces, particularly one involving a pitchfork, a scene in a car wash and the aforementioned ending. On the downside, there are a few cheap jump scares thrown in. The music also struck me as being rather pedestrian at times. Overall though, I can safely say I'll be returning to this one more often than the 1973 effort.
44 of 57 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
| Report this
This remake of the 1973 George Romero film sees the rural Iowa town of Ogden Marsh become unhinged when it's residents begin exhibiting odd behavior, usually culminating in acts of violence. Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) is at a loss to explain what's happening to the people he's known all his life, but the discovery of a dead pilot in a marsh leads him to the answer, a downed plane infecting the town's water supply. It isn't long before the military has blocked all methods of communication and descended upon the town. Determined to render a final solution, they don't intend to let anyone out alive.
Following the basic setup of the original, this update expands upon the story and throws in a few new directions and surprises. If you ask me, there was plenty of room for improvement. Romero's film is decent, but highly flawed. You could blame the budget, but Romero's done some fantastic work with low budgets. It definitely had bigger problems than that. This is the type of remake I wish there were more of, the type that can improve on a weak original. We spend the majority of the film with the four main characters as they attempt to escape the madness; David, his wife (Radha Mitchell), his deputy (Joe Anderson) and his wife's secretary (Danielle Pannabaker). I was already a fan of both Olyphant and the lovely Mitchell before viewing this, and they're once again in solid form here. This is basically Olyphant's show, and he owns the screen when he's on. I'd love to see him get more leading roles after this. Anderson and Pannabaker are also impressive, getting me to care about the fates of their characters, something that many horror films have a hard time doing. One of the major differences between this and the Romero original is the lack of focus on the military's point of view this time around. We spend the duration seeing the events from the perspective of the leads and various other townsfolk. While the POV shown in the '73 film did offer some levels of interest, I think it works better as far as menace goes to not do that here.
The crazies themselves are well rendered, each person reacting differently to the virus. Some are completely gone while others still retain some semblance of a thought process, the hunters for instance. After seeing the trailer, I was worried that they'd turn this into another zombie movie, but I was happy to see that wasn't the case. Speaking of the crazies, Lynn Lowry (of the original, Shivers, I Drink Your Blood, etc.) pops up very briefly as one of them. A nice little nod there, and I noticed another potential nod to a similar film, 1984's Impulse, in which contaminated milk leads people to act on their base impulses. A scene of Olyphant running after a mysterious vehicle that has been documenting the carnage mirrors a sequence from that picture. Also of note is Maxime Alexandre's gorgeous cinematography. Eisner was smart in getting him, as he's done equally stellar work for Alexandre Aja in the past. Thankfully, the use of CGI is minimal. In fact, I don't believe any pops up until the end, and when we get to that, it actually works just fine.
The film is peppered with a number of suitably tense set-pieces, particularly one involving a pitchfork, a scene in a car wash and the aforementioned ending. On the downside, there are a few cheap jump scares thrown in. The music also struck me as being rather pedestrian at times. Overall though, I can safely say I'll be returning to this one more often than the 1973 effort.