Sunday 23 June 2013

Review: The Crazies (2010)


Genre: Horror, Thriller, Mystery

Director: Breck Eisner

Writers: Scott Kosar, Ray Wright, George A. Romero (credited for original film)

Staring: Radha Mitchell, Timothy Olyphant, Danielle Panabacker, Joe Anderson

Rating: ★★★½
Although officially this is not a traditional "zombie" film it follows the same narrative of one, creating a lack of innovation however what you expect to get out the film you well and truly do resulting in just over 90 minutes of entertainment. The down-sider to this film is there is far too much dialogue and too little scares and thrills that you would expect from a film of this genre.

The plot surrounds a small town in Iowa who are infected by a toxin that spills into their water supply resulting in a few mysterious deaths that then suddenly leads into a insanity, raged filled plague that wipes out the whole neighbourhood except from a few survivors. The film follows the towns Sheriff, David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) who after a work catches a local baseball game with his deputy, Russell Clank (Joe Anderson). The game is paused as the towns drunk wanders onto the field with a shotgun, racing onto the field David tries negotiating but the shotgun equipped drunk raises his gun leading him to be shot in front of the whole crowd by the Sheriff. A autopsy shows that there was not a drop of alcohol in the system of the now dead armed wanderer causing ever growing suspicions from Sheriff Dutton.

The Sheriff's wife, the local doctor Judy (Radha Mitchell), starts treating some strange cases in Ogden Marsh and without spoiling the plot, Sheriff Dutton and his deputy discover the cause of the upcoming plague. However a money driven Mayor dismisses the claims and refuses to take emergency actions. After the spread and deaths worsen the town gets quarantined and unfortunately for the infected the cure seems worse than the disease. Judy, Dave and deputy Russell then have to fight their way out of what once was their home town but now is a plagued hell.



When looking at The Crazies you could do far worse but at the same time its just a mix between Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and Day Of The Dead  (2005). For its genre it doesn't offer anything new but that doesn't mean its a bad film, the acting and special effects were good as you would expect from a modern film, and to add the gore and deaths were exciting with a pitch fork here and an angle grinder there. It sure isn't an all time great but a apocalyptic film worth watching? Give it a go.                                



 



No comments:

Post a Comment