The Crazies | 2010
The Crazies
"The Crazies" is a 2010 science fiction horror film directed by Breck Eisner. The film is a remake of the 1973 film of the same name, starring Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, and Danielle Panabaker. George A. Romero, the writer and director of the original, served as an executive producer. The film tells the story of a fictional town in Iowa where a biological agent turns infected people into violent killers. It was released on February 26, 2010, and grossed $54 million on a budget of $20 million. According to Metacritic, the film received mixed reviews, while Rotten Tomatoes described it as "tense, well-shot, and exceptionally intelligent."
In the fictional town of Ogden Marsh, Iowa, resident Rory disrupts a local baseball game while carrying a shotgun. Sheriff David Dutton tries to persuade Rory, but when Rory raises his weapon, David is forced to shoot him. David's wife, Judy, is the local doctor, and she witnesses another resident, Bill, exhibiting strange behavior. That night, Bill locks his wife and son in their home and sets it on fire.
After a pilot's body is found in a swamp, David and his deputy, Russell, investigate the area. They discover a military plane that crashed into the river days earlier. Suspecting a link between the contaminated water and the residents' strange behavior, David urges Mayor Hobbs to shut off the town's water supply. Hobbs refuses, but David takes matters into his own hands. While responding to a disturbance at the coroner's office, David and Russell are attacked by an infected pathologist, whom they kill with a chainsaw.
Soon, all communication services are cut off, and soldiers arrive to quarantine the residents at the local high school. The residents undergo tests for infection. Judy, who is pregnant, is classified as infected due to a fever and is separated from David. After escaping quarantine, David returns to the office to meet Russell, and they head to the school to rescue Judy. At the school, the soldiers are overwhelmed by a large group of infected individuals and abandon the scene. Judy wakes up tied to a stretcher, and an infected person enters with a pitchfork, starting to kill defenseless people. David and Russell arrive to rescue Judy and her assistant, Becca.
The four escape the town on foot and witness soldiers killing Becca's boyfriend, Scotty, and his mother, then burning their bodies. David subdues a soldier and learns that the military has been ordered to shoot all civilians. They arrive at David's house and begin to repair a car. David encounters Rory's infected wife, Peggy, and son, Kurt, killing Peggy while Russell shoots Kurt through a window. Russell enters the room and shoots their bodies multiple times, unsettling Judy.
David, Judy, Becca, and Russell flee in a car. They are spotted by an attacking helicopter and hide in a garage. Infected car wash employees attack the car, and Becca is pulled out and killed. As the rest of the group exits the car to help Becca, the helicopter destroys the vehicle.
While walking, the group encounters a speeding black SUV, and Russell disables the car with police spike strips. The driver reveals he is a government employee, and the cargo plane was carrying a Rhabdoviridae prototype and a biological weapon named Trixie. The plane crashed while en route to Texas for destruction. An enraged Russell shoots the driver and threatens the Dutton family. David confronts him about his actions, and Russell realizes he has been infected. He pleads to continue together. At a military roadblock, Russell distracts the soldiers and attempts to shoot but is killed. The Dutton family secretly arrives at a truck stop to find a vehicle and learns that the military has executed evacuees. David discovers through the radio that the military plans to destroy the town. After killing two infected hunters, they escape in a semi-truck. As they leave, a massive explosion destroys Ogden Marsh, disabling the truck and forcing them to continue on foot. A military satellite view shows the couple and the town, with the message "Quarantine Protocol Initiated."
In a semi-breaking news broadcast, a Cedar Rapids news anchor reports on the explosion in Ogden Marsh, stating that a perimeter has been set and civilians are prohibited from entering the area. An infected person's face unintentionally appears before the signal cuts out.
The film premiered in Los Angeles on February 24, 2010, and was widely released in North America on February 26, 2010. It opened with $16 million, ranking third behind "Cop Out" and "Shutter Island." By May 2010, the film had grossed approximately $50 million worldwide. The Canadian DVD and Blu-ray were released on June 29, 2010, and the DVD and Blu-ray + digital copy combo pack was released in North America on June 29, 2010, and in the UK on July 19, 2010.
The film received a 71% approval rating based on 155 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's critical consensus stated, "Tense, well-shot, and exceptionally intelligent, 'The Crazies' is a rare successful horror remake." On Metacritic, it scored 56 out of 100 based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." CinemaScore audiences gave the film an average grade of "B−."
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, stating, "I prefer this film to the '73 version. It is concise and straightforward." Eric M. Armstrong of Moving Arts Film Journal described "The Crazies" as a solid B-movie and one of the few remakes that surpasses the original. Ty Burr of the Boston Globe rated it 3 out of 4 stars, calling it "a very solid piece – the best you can expect from a B-movie remake." Dennis Harvey of Variety noted that the film emerges as "an above-average genre piece that straddles horror melodrama and apocalyptic action thriller."
However, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a grade of C, stating, "No matter how this premise is dressed up, we've seen it thousands of times." Mike Hale of The New York Times remarked, "In their effort to make a serious and respected horror film, the filmmakers have minimized the fun." Amy Biancolli of the San Francisco Chronicle evaluated the remake as having "a diminished plot and fewer characters than the original, but with more polished hairstyles and special effects that have evolved into the flashy gross-out expected from cheap stage blood."
At the People's Choice Awards, the film was nominated for Favorite Horror Movie. A motion comic was released on iTunes on February 17, and a four-part comic mini-series dealing with the spread of the virus was also released. The following week, an iPhone app titled "Beware of Infected" was launched, and Starz Digital Media released a Facebook game.
