The Crazies

It’s easy to dismiss Breck Eisner’s modern update of cult classic The Crazies from the opening scene alone. A small town street succumbing to fire and destruction is as familiar to the news channel button hopper as it is to the casual cinema-goer.

To dismiss it, however, would be to miss out on a good, yet minor addition to an entertaining double-bill of Romero remakes alongside Zack Snyder’s Dawn Of the Dead.

And it’s in comparison with Snyder's Dawn that Eisner's film suffers. Dawn Of The Dead might be the polar opposite of the original in terms of pacing, and the jabs at consumerism come heavily padded, but not only does it get the balance between characterisation and acting just right, it doesn’t gloss over humanity’s downturn. It also adds some surprisingly accomplished touches, including observations about our instant communication culture and society’s obsession with celebrity. Even the sprinting zombies, a much maligned change at the time, are a nod to the speed at which we churn up the world; building it up before tearing it down at an unpleasantly exponential rate.

That kind of satire is lacking here. While Dawn took place in the heart of a city, Eisner’s The Crazies is slap bang in the heart of the country. The discovery of a downed military plane that might have leaked something toxic into the water supply, turns the sedate scenery and simple values of a small Iowa town into an isolated prison where creeping dread rules. Rather than saving the world, all Sheriff Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) wants to do is get his pregnant wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell) out, but when the military bails on them, even the help of his Deputy (Joe Anderson) and a plucky teenager (Danielle Panabaker) might not be enough.

The main realisation being: if there’s one group of people you don’t want with a few screws loose it’s farmers. The filmmakers orchestrate a dip into a hell that mixes the usual good ol’ boy firearms with the threat of primal bladed weapons and machinery.

It never gets quite that apocalyptic - any gorehounds expecting a riff on Garth Ennis’s eviscerating, and similarly themed comic, Crossed, will have to look elsewhere - but what it might lack in visceral thrills, it makes up for in restraint.

In among the obligatory ‘boo’ scares are some unsettling moments of horror, including a power saw punch-up that comes agonisingly close to castration and a genuinely nasty set-piece consisting of a garden fork and a row of trussed-up bodies.

Eisner lets each scene breath, resisting the usual jagged editing and making good use of sound - whether it’s the dripping of a morgue tap or the aforementioned fork being dragged - each digging into your skull like a heavy chord of madness. He also mixes colour schemes to jarring, yet powerful effect, as the desaturated daytime moves into the garish insanity of the night.

Eisner is well supported by the actors, playing it admirably straight. Moving from Mitchell’s choked anguish after a man burns down the house containing his wife and child, to Olyphant’s steely-eyed resolve, protecting his wife, while struggling with his own sanity.

For a film dealing with insanity, however, it seems inevitable that there’ll be a few unfortunate peculiarities and it’s a shame that Eisner gives up the choking paranoia of military involvement so easily. What’s kept hidden behind gas masks and the crackle of anonymous radio communications is traded away to put a friendly face on a group who’ve been happy, up till then, to massacre with flame-thrower and rifle.

In another scene, a group of men who once hunted for ducks, mow down humans. It's a flip that feels more akin to the Romero of old, but one that’s wasted near the climax of the film. It’s a similar end for Joe Anderson’s excellent work as Deputy Clank. A man best summed up by his line, “I’m no world beater, but I have plans”. It’s his mania that comes close to the subtleties of Romero’s story, until it, too, is tossed aside for oh-so familiar redemption.

While the final scene comes closer to the bleak tone of the best of the horror Godfather’s legacy, and that of Snyder’s film it feels bolted-on, rather than fully realised.