It's Crazy That The Crazies Is Crazy Good

Horror remakes like this are not supposed to be this good. They're supposed to have one dimensional characters who act without reason, "The Crazies"focuses on three characters and develops their story to a fulfilling conclusion. Horror movies like this usually use audio cues to create cheap scares, and while "The Crazies" does this, it's the overriding tension and sense of dread that really fries your mind.

Timothy Olyphant plays a small town Sheriff with some big time problems. How big time we talking here? How about residents losing their minds and starting to kill their families? Not big enough time for you? How about the military coming in to contain the mindless residents. And not even big enough time for you. How about the fact that any one of the man characters could be losing their mind as the film goes on. That's pretty much all I'll say about the plot, but needless to say, everything is explained at the end.

All you cinematic naysayers need to relax, so what, "Crazies" director Breck Eisner made the poorly conceived (and lawsuit ridden) "Sahara," but that doesn't mean he's a bad director. In fact, his direction is one of the highlights of the film. The fights with the twisted town folks are shot in close quarters, adding urgency and shocking sense of reality to what usually is your standard gore fest. Together with cinematographer Maxime Alexandre, Eisner paints a terrifying view of a town descending from shining and cheery to shiny and cheery, but wait, I mean shiny with psychopaths with glimmering pitchforks who are cheery to kill you.

I mean, let's be honest, you are either interested in the movie or not. I don't think many people are doing double features with this and "An Education." But if you are on the brink of checking it out or just staying at home at watching your roommate play Call of Duty, go see "The Crazies," you won't be disappointed.