The Crazies

Although recently I have seen quite a few horror films, I am not very familiar with the original horror classics made by George Romero. Most of them are supposed to be thrilling and much better than the modern day remakes, yet I did enjoy Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead (2004). Originality is hard to develop in horror films because most audiences have seen everything before in previous motion pictures. You can make a blood-splattering zombie, vampire, or serial killer movie but chances are another filmmaker has already created a film with a similar story, bigger stars, and more gore. Yet every once in a while a director will come up with a clever story in order to make up for the lack of innovation in modern horror films. Last year's Paranormal Activity (2009) is one of those exceptions and so is Breck Eisner's The Crazies (2010).

If our own government accidentally dropped a biological weapon on a small country town, would it take precautions to cover it up or would it admit the mistake and take necessary measures to help those infected? This is the situation in The Crazies, in which each family of a small town in Iowa begin developing violent symptoms and start losing their minds. One day at a high school baseball game a local farmer comes onto a baseball field with a double barrel shotgun. After failing to talk the crazed man out of dropping the gun, the local sheriff named David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) is forced to shoot him. At first it is believed that the incident was a consequence of the farmer drinking too much but soon other citizens of the town begins acting in a familiar way. One man burns his house down while his wife and child are locked within. Another man appears to have lost the ability to speak. Confused about what is happening, David and his deputy go searching for possible leads to what could be causing the disturbing behavior of the locals. In their search they discover a crashed plane underneath the town's river and they soon see that it is no coincidence that those who live closest to the water supply are slowly developing symptoms of the strange disease. A few days after the first signs of the virus, military personnel suddenly appear and take everyone in town into custody. At the military base, David and his wife are separated because it is believed that she has been infected. The rest of the film follows David's journey to try and save his wife. Can he trust the government to do the right thing and take care of his wife or is he the only one who can save her? Although the Crazies themselves are entertaining, it is nothing viewers probably haven't seen before. They basically act exactly like zombies minus the biting. What separates this film from other horror films are the emotions shared by the main characters and the political questions brought up about how our government might handle the accidental insurgence of biological weapons on U.S. soil. Naturally every character begins to become paranoid over the fact that his or her friends and family may have become infected, yet how to you deal with knowing that your loved ones will soon become uncontrollably disturbed and may try to kill you. It is amazing, yet understandable how people's personalities can suddenly change at the first sign of any danger.

Overall, The Crazies has enough action and gore to satisfy horror movie fans, but is also clever enough to separate it from most other modern horror remakes. So far this has been the biggest surprise for me in 2010.