The Crazies Review (2010)

My History With the Film:
I was working at a movie theater when The Crazies came out, but I just never had much of an interest in seeing it. The poster looked cool, but for some reason the marketing just didn’t draw me in.

One bored night I was browsing Amazon Prime when I stumbled upon The Crazies and decided to give it a shot. I had heard rave reviews online about it and hoped it would live up to the hype.

What The Film Is About (Non-Spoiler):
After a plane crash, a mysterious virus infiltrates a small town and turns its residents into violent psychopaths.

What I Liked About It:
-Timothy Olyphant (Scream 2, A Perfect Getaway), Radha Mitchelle (Silent Hill, Pitch Black), and Danielle Panabaker (The Flash, Friday the 13th) are all fantastic and do a wonderful job in this film.

 

-The small town setting was perfect for this film and it felt real and lived in. Small town politics and power struggles occur and I loved how the town how news filtered throughout the town. It felt so realistic.

 

-The idea that one day, something will make people insanely violent out of no where is truly haunting and is the one thing I enjoyed most about this film. The way the townspeople go a little berserk is scary and is something none of us would want to experience.

 

-Since watching this film, a pandemic has occurred and its interesting to see how the quarantine worked and how temperature checks were part of the process. I’m sure watching The Crazies now vs. pre-quarantine would be a bit more relatable.

 

-The makeup for the virus was subtle but impressive.

What I Didn’t Like About It: 

-The movie starts off incredibly strong with the virus slowly engulfing the town, but quickly it becomes bigger and huge government conspiracies come into play and the movie slowly loses itself. Arguably the plot was already something you’d expect to see in The X-Files, I just think The X-Files would have handled it a bit better because by the end you are just ready for the movie to be over before they undo more of the goodwill they built into the beginning of the film.

Additional Notes:
-The old police car they go to is from 1973, the year the original movie came out.

-The “Crazy” make up took three hours to apply.

-Lynn Lowry, who co-starred in the original The Crazies, infected local riding a bike.

Rating:
I enjoyed The Crazies, but I wouldn’t watch it again. It was a mediocre film that helped me kill an hour and a half but I really didn’t feel much afterwards. I know this film has a bit of a following, but I just didn’t see what all the hype was about. It’s essentially a zombie movie without making the infected zombies, but I feel like I’ve seen better zombie movies elsewhere.

I’d rate The Crazies a two out of five and say its a low priority rental.