Nepotism + Remake = Good Movie? Oddly, Yes.

Despite my voluminous intake of films, the original The Crazies is one of the George Romero pics I've missed and I hadn't seen anything by Breck (fils de Michael) Eisner before last night. I came to The Crazies with no pitchfork to grind. I left, however, with a sore arm, due to the intense amout of squeezing and yanking my female companion gave it during the screening.

My bruises are proof that the jump scares work. Of more importance, however, is The Crazies' ability to get that intangible feeling of primordial dread from out of your nightmares and onto the screen. On more than a few occasions I muttered to myself, "woah, that's a heckuva shot." Indeed, The Crazies has some of the better 2nd Unit photography you are likely to see in a movie that isn't set anywhere particularly exotic.

The location is a tiny town in Iowa that has weaponized toxins in their water supply turning them all into ugly killbots. Lucky for you, The Crazies will bore you with only a hint of exposition. The screenplay for The Crazies lacks subtlety and wit, but it has the good sense to know when to shut up. The best lines from the movie are "ahhhh!" and "noooooo!" and "sh*****t!" This is not a knock. The Crazies is at its peak when it is working as pure, visual storytelling.

All right, let's bring it down to earth a little bit. It's just a dopey survival horror picture. Yet, like the best of Romero's work, it taps into the truly frightening chaos that can erupt with the breakdown of social constructs. One cool thing that may surprise you, too, is that there are bad guys on either side. You've got the infected "crazies" and you've got the military that is sent in to isolate and eradicate the virus.  (The clockwork efficiency of our government is perhaps more far-fetched than the instigating disease premise, but no matter.) From armchairs length one can argue the morality of these Army men, but when they are pointing a gun at pregnant Radha Mitchell it is another story.

Mitchell is the town doctor married to the town Sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) and we lam it with them as they try to escape the town and its twin terrors. Set piece follows set piece, including one particularly sharp one in a car wash. You can practically see the producer shouting down the writer: Get me a sequence somewhere we've never seen one before! I dunno, a car wash or something! While the conceit is ridiculous, it is a) actually frightening and b) advances the plot. High fives all around.

It's been a while since I've enjoyed a mainstream, non-comedy horror release this much. It surely doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it puts a nice, fresh sheen on it. Perhaps what's most interesting is to think that if Breck Eisner got his hands on a really rock solid script we'd a have a genuine movie on our hand. Charges of nepotism are hereby officially dropped.