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PeterGriffin1Fan Gets An Early Look At THE CRAZIES Remake!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Merrick here...
PeterGriffin1Fan sent in some thoughts after a test screening of THE CRAZIES - director Breck Eisner's remake of this 1973 George Romero film:
Eisner's remake isn't scheduled to hit theaters until early next year. So, as with all screening reports of this type, please keep in mind that significant changes may be made to this movie before we get a look at a final product.
Here's PeterGriffin1Fan...
I like to consider myself a fan of all types of genres when it comes to movies. But when it comes to a favorite, I always seem to respond best to horror films. I love the thrill of watching a good horror film and being scared shitless during certain scenes. I love simple and basic battle between good and evil, whatever forms those may take. And the combination of music, cinematography, editing, and makeup can make even the most avid filmgoers cringe and cover their eyes.
However, there are a lot of these genre films that miss the mark. Recently, there has been a slew of remakes, rehashes, reimaginations, and very few of them have brought justice to the originals. Well, I’m here to tell you that you can add another one to that list.
There are going to be some spoilers in this review but I’ll try to keep them to a minimum. But if you’ve seen the original, you’re not going to be that surprised. I was invited to one of the first screenings of Breck Eisner’s remake of George Romero’s THE CRAZIES starring Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. While I’m familiar with the original, I haven’t seen it in about 10 years. However, even without seeing the original there’s so many things wrong with this film I don’t know where to start…
The movie revolves around a small town in Iowa that one day, all of a sudden, the people start acting crazily…hence THE CRAZIES. Olyphant plays the town sheriff and Mitchell plays his wife, the town doctor. Of course, all hell breaks loose but these people don’t become flesh eating zombies, they become almost hypnotized into torturing and killing anybody who gets in their way. While trying to leave the town, the survivors realize what’s causing the townspeople to act this way and it’s a race to avoid not only the crazies, but possibly something or someone even bigger.
First off and maybe the most frustrating thing is the movie starts out very clichéd with the ending first. The problem when doing this with a horror film or any other film for that matter, it gives too F’N much away! Like who survives and who doesn’t. Now, am I going to be surprised at all when these characters are in suspenseful situations? Nope, because the whole audience knows they’ll be fine. That, to me, takes a lot of the suspense and uncertainty out of a horror film.
The acting of both Olyphant and Mitchell are pretty sub-par. While I like both actors, I think they do much better when they’re in supporting roles. Olyphant can’t carry a movie (IE Hitman) but seems to do his best work when he’s not the center of attention (IE Damages on FX, The Girl Next Door, and Go). However, one bright spot is Olyphant’s deputy played by Joe Anderson. He’s got a pretty significant role and really steals a lot of the scenes that he’s in.
The script is pretty typical of a mainstream horror film nowadays… clichéd, flawed, and somewhat comical at times. Seriously, how many times in these movies do people get killed off when they’re alone and yet the group of survivors continues to split up and look for supplies by themselves? Ever heard of a buddy system? I’d never heard of Scott Kosar before but when I looked him up, the choice of scriptwriter made perfect sense. Before The Crazies, he had penned the remakes of The Amityville Horror and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He should really stick to original work because I also noticed he wrote The Machinist, which was a very well-written film but I guess whatever pays the bills.
Breck Eisner, the director of this film, does show some promise as a horror director. I didn’t enjoy Sahara very much but he may have a calling within the horror genre. He has an eye for suspense which is evident in the first third of the movie. After the first third, instead of keeping the audience guessing on when something bad will happen, he tends to just make you jump as many times as he can. It looks like he’ll be in the director’s chair for the remake of The Creature From The Black Lagoon so I’m interested to see what he does with that.
The music wasn’t fully finished (I believe I heard the Dark Knight theme near the end of the film but I could be wrong) and some coloring was off but other than that, it looked to be like a pretty solid cut of the film. One thing I did enjoy was the pacing of the film. Right from the get-go, the movie is running at a pretty brisk and suspenseful pace. While there was some gore in the film, I would have liked a little more, especially near the end. Some of the most enjoyable horror films are the ones that start off fairly tame and then slowly build towards a crescendo with more and more ridiculous death scenes. There are a couple scenes, specifically in the Olyphant’s and Mitchell’s home and at the city morgue, but ultimately, the finale is pretty lame and unfulfilling.
And finally, when filling out the survey, I was pretty brutal in my critique. But they asked what they thought about the ending and once again, I let them have it asking “You mean the beginning?” However, the movie doesn’t start out right at the end as there’s another few minutes afterwards which had me scratching my head and almost even more adamant. It’s open-ended but so ridiculously flawed and stupid that I wanted to yell at the screen. And if that wasn’t enough, during the rolling of the credits, they have the typical newscast that is shown to cover-up the whole incident which didn’t add anything.
Overall, the movie is a huge disappointment as I was pretty excited to see this remake done right. While there were a couple sparkling moments, the movie falls pretty flat and is just another Hollywood remake that doesn’t do the original justice. And if Breck Eisner or anyone over at Overture Films reads this or my survey, PLEASE FOR GOD’S SAKE…CHANGE THE ENDING (or the beginning) OF THIS FILM! If you use this, call me PeterGriffin1Fan.
However, there are a lot of these genre films that miss the mark. Recently, there has been a slew of remakes, rehashes, reimaginations, and very few of them have brought justice to the originals. Well, I’m here to tell you that you can add another one to that list.
There are going to be some spoilers in this review but I’ll try to keep them to a minimum. But if you’ve seen the original, you’re not going to be that surprised. I was invited to one of the first screenings of Breck Eisner’s remake of George Romero’s THE CRAZIES starring Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. While I’m familiar with the original, I haven’t seen it in about 10 years. However, even without seeing the original there’s so many things wrong with this film I don’t know where to start…
The movie revolves around a small town in Iowa that one day, all of a sudden, the people start acting crazily…hence THE CRAZIES. Olyphant plays the town sheriff and Mitchell plays his wife, the town doctor. Of course, all hell breaks loose but these people don’t become flesh eating zombies, they become almost hypnotized into torturing and killing anybody who gets in their way. While trying to leave the town, the survivors realize what’s causing the townspeople to act this way and it’s a race to avoid not only the crazies, but possibly something or someone even bigger.
First off and maybe the most frustrating thing is the movie starts out very clichéd with the ending first. The problem when doing this with a horror film or any other film for that matter, it gives too F’N much away! Like who survives and who doesn’t. Now, am I going to be surprised at all when these characters are in suspenseful situations? Nope, because the whole audience knows they’ll be fine. That, to me, takes a lot of the suspense and uncertainty out of a horror film.
The acting of both Olyphant and Mitchell are pretty sub-par. While I like both actors, I think they do much better when they’re in supporting roles. Olyphant can’t carry a movie (IE Hitman) but seems to do his best work when he’s not the center of attention (IE Damages on FX, The Girl Next Door, and Go). However, one bright spot is Olyphant’s deputy played by Joe Anderson. He’s got a pretty significant role and really steals a lot of the scenes that he’s in.
The script is pretty typical of a mainstream horror film nowadays… clichéd, flawed, and somewhat comical at times. Seriously, how many times in these movies do people get killed off when they’re alone and yet the group of survivors continues to split up and look for supplies by themselves? Ever heard of a buddy system? I’d never heard of Scott Kosar before but when I looked him up, the choice of scriptwriter made perfect sense. Before The Crazies, he had penned the remakes of The Amityville Horror and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He should really stick to original work because I also noticed he wrote The Machinist, which was a very well-written film but I guess whatever pays the bills.
Breck Eisner, the director of this film, does show some promise as a horror director. I didn’t enjoy Sahara very much but he may have a calling within the horror genre. He has an eye for suspense which is evident in the first third of the movie. After the first third, instead of keeping the audience guessing on when something bad will happen, he tends to just make you jump as many times as he can. It looks like he’ll be in the director’s chair for the remake of The Creature From The Black Lagoon so I’m interested to see what he does with that.
The music wasn’t fully finished (I believe I heard the Dark Knight theme near the end of the film but I could be wrong) and some coloring was off but other than that, it looked to be like a pretty solid cut of the film. One thing I did enjoy was the pacing of the film. Right from the get-go, the movie is running at a pretty brisk and suspenseful pace. While there was some gore in the film, I would have liked a little more, especially near the end. Some of the most enjoyable horror films are the ones that start off fairly tame and then slowly build towards a crescendo with more and more ridiculous death scenes. There are a couple scenes, specifically in the Olyphant’s and Mitchell’s home and at the city morgue, but ultimately, the finale is pretty lame and unfulfilling.
And finally, when filling out the survey, I was pretty brutal in my critique. But they asked what they thought about the ending and once again, I let them have it asking “You mean the beginning?” However, the movie doesn’t start out right at the end as there’s another few minutes afterwards which had me scratching my head and almost even more adamant. It’s open-ended but so ridiculously flawed and stupid that I wanted to yell at the screen. And if that wasn’t enough, during the rolling of the credits, they have the typical newscast that is shown to cover-up the whole incident which didn’t add anything.
Overall, the movie is a huge disappointment as I was pretty excited to see this remake done right. While there were a couple sparkling moments, the movie falls pretty flat and is just another Hollywood remake that doesn’t do the original justice. And if Breck Eisner or anyone over at Overture Films reads this or my survey, PLEASE FOR GOD’S SAKE…CHANGE THE ENDING (or the beginning) OF THIS FILM! If you use this, call me PeterGriffin1Fan.
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+ Expand All
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No more posts are necessary.
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feel the need to tell you the name of the film like 18 times? Nonetheless, I've never seen this film. It's going under my radar though.
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McConaughey is soooo handsome!
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please see District 9 as an example for an original bad ass movie. Hitman was a piece of shit too.
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The original film isn't all that good to begin with, although it is an interesting watch. The idea of a remake for a so-so film being any good is kinda preposterous.
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He also can't do one movie without trying to fucking show off his pecks. What was that flick he did with Pacino? The one where Al took him to acting school?
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if so what's your two cents?
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This was going to hit the sawdust from the outset. The original version starts with cute little poppets in the midst of murderous mayhem, and goes on to feature themes of father/daughter incest, heavy-handed military tactics damning the world and social commentary galore. Not to mention having the cool touch of featuring cast members from all 3 of Romero's Dead trilogy. This looks like another movie remade via the magic of "straw-poll" or "vox-pops", as most are. "Hey, kids, have you heard of [insert name of movie]?" "Yes!". "Have you seen it?" "No." "We're in business, boys". Wanna bet that next up is a remake of John Waters' Mondo Trasho?
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penned scripts for Ammityville Horror and Texas Chainsaw remakes. Soooo in other words, he's a leechy douchebag?
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It was a very low budget 60's kind of movie.
But one of the points the mopvie made was the military was just as bad as the disease. They were very heavy handed and single minded.
I imagine that aspect will be removed in the modern version.
One of the flaws with modern remakes is they seem to never quite grasp that the originals had very strong anti-government or anti-corporate themes. Rollerball and Death Race 2000 for example.
Modern remakes want to pretty up those horrific aspects. -
you might make Harry cry cheddar goldfish.
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Kind of mildly redeeming, maybe.
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on TCM one night (I DO miss their Friday night underground series, caught some vintage Meyer and Hershell Lewis on that), so I can't comment on the original. Buuut, if you're going to do a remake, it seems like the kind of material that can benefit from a redo. A lesser known film, or good idea done not-so-good, by a good director, should benefit by a remake. The only thing is the period that it was made is when we started to question government and authority. And making the government/military the bad guy was a novel idea. Now, its a cliche.
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I can remember the original, I think I re-watched it a few years back. I pretty much agree with EvilWizardGlick (except that its a 70's movie and not a 60's) about the points the movie made (back in the day when Romero believed in subtlety and not smashing you around the face with his political opinions). The low budget really comes through at certain points but I can remember Romero in an interview a few years ago saying he wished he could revisit it someday. Isn't on the same level of the dead trilogy though!
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Another REMAKE !!!
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besides the Dead movies I unfortunately haven't seen. I know there's this and 'Martin.' That's it right?
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...they're all worth a watch Cheyne. I have Monkey Shines too but can't remember if I liked it or not. There's a nest of insects inside the VHS cover last time I checked...not a good sign
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Yep I too have seen THE CRAZIES (original). Not a great film by any stretch, prob the best thing about it is it's 'scrappiness'. It's got that low budget vibe and a certain mean-spirited quality that means you're uneasy and not quite sure how far Romero will take things to shock you.
This remake was always going to have a hard time finding an audience... hope the studio didn't spend too much money making it cos sounds like they might not see a return! -
Season of the Witch
There's always vanilla
Creepshow
Knightriders
Monkey Shines
The Dark Half
Bruiser -
I was really hoping this review was written by petergrifin, that illiterate Cumpston-esque talkbacker. Oh well, carry on with this pointless remake banality.
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This is PeterGriffin1Fan. The movie does contain that aspect of the original. While I wasn't trying to give too much away in the review, there is that constant struggle for the survivors as to who should they fear more...the crazies or the government.
That is one aspect of the original that was passed along. However, not a lot of information is given as to the government's motives or anything like that which left a little to be desired. But maybe that's what they were trying to convey. -
not that there's anything wrong with that
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Remakes can't help but be disappointing, but this sounds worse than that. The original is one of Romero's tough little films he didn't make nearly enough of between the two, and only two, good _Dead_ flicks (sorry, Shpadoink, half of _Knightriders_ is OK where not sappy, but the rest on your list are not really worth that much of a look. At all.). Around the time this was remake was originally announced, it seemed like a perfect genre take on our push/pull, too much/not enough, Patriot Act/Katrina times. Too bad Brad Anderson wasn't ultimately involved in this, which probably would have helped matters considerably. I dug Tim on _Deadwood_ and think Ms. Mitchell is as insanely hot as she is underrated. We will see, and most likely be disappointed...
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One of the few horror movies this device has ever worked in was Denzel Washington's "Fallen." I love that movie, despite its few flaws. Vastly underrated.
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Thanks for the heads up.
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Romero did 'Creepshow.' One of the only movies to generally scare me as a kid.
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And the reveal at the end is their hive queen is Glenn Beck? ...sorry...
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had the "ending" tacked to the beginning by the studio. I wonder if this was kind of an homage to that..the last survivor of a small town "taken over".
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No doubt! The GOP is certifiable these days...
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Sep 03, 2009 12:37:58 PM CDT
Let me guess, the crazy plague spreads out over the world.
by cookylamoo
And torture porn becomes even MORE popular.
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"...they asked what they thought about the ending and once again, I let them have it asking “You mean the beginning?”"
Yeah buddy, you really let em have it. -
And he suggested the Breck Eisner has no clue what he's doing as a director. Technically he was ok but working with actors he was bad. Tis what I heard, anyway.
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Anyone notice that the reviews of films here on AICN have as of late been more about what the reviewer may know or may google™ about the filmmakers or stars. Or who they knew or blew to get into the screening. That's great, let your freaky geek flag fly, but tell us about the damn movie.
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I worked on the film. Did they go with the nose bleed café ending?
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Sep 03, 2009 1:21:54 PM CDT
I agree; the government being the villain has become a cliche.
by fluffyunbound
Not that our government doesn't still suck, because it does. But I think it would be much MORE scary if you had a CRAZIES type film where the government is trying to stop the plague, and does everything right and is completely sincere and well-intentioned, but fails because the shit just can't be stopped.
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"the government is trying to stop the plague, and does everything right and is completely sincere and well-intentioned, but fails because the shit just can't be stopped."
From government perspective that is exactly what they are doing. And this makes their intervention even scarier. Ever hear of destroy the village to save the village? -
praise or condemnation from someone who's callsign is PeterGriffin1Fan probably isn't a particularly good indicator of quality.
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The "crazy virus" is just a horror concept to facilitate this. It's about the government denying any accountability for a problem they caused themselves and "dealing" with the problem with brute force filtered through layers of bureaucracy. The actual solution, a cure for the virus, is lost because no one is capable of communicating in that setting and nobody is motivated to act outside the parameters of what they think "their job" in the crisis is. Scott Kosar probably gutted any of that from the script and turned it into a copy of 28 Days Later, which was itself was Alex Garland's ripoff of The Crazies (and Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the dead, and...etc.)
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Like a year or two ago. It was just boring. It had to be deleated.
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Not a Zombie movie.
Not necessary
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No one's mentioned Martin, which was one of Romero's greatest films. A whole new look at the vampire film, with some incredible editing (by Romero himself).
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Is it a flawed film? Yeah, the performances are uneven and Romero's tendency toward being overtly preachy comes out more strongly than in the best of his films. But this movie packs a punch. The opening sequence is great. When various characters begin to go...crazy Romero brings out their despair, the tragedy of what's happening to them, the finality of their loss in fabulous form. There are good scares. And the government as villain thing is being overplayed in this talkback. An accident happened. The government is trying to solve it and trying to make sure it doesn't spread outside the town. There is no "government bad guy" like in Outbreak or The Blob remake. The enemy is the inability of well meaning people to stop what's happening, the inability of the bureaucracy to move quickly enough to save anything. In this movie the NOW cliched final decision seems like the most responsible (if horrible) thing to do. I knew the remake wouldn't have the guts or smarts to come anywhere close.
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...that cute, odd hippy-looking girl from Shivers and some Metzger film. Plus it had the guy who played Dr. Frankenstein in Day of the Dead and the guy with the eye patch in the original Dawn who talked about using the nuclear option, and who also pleads for people to remain rational. Which is kind of ironic considering his fate in The Crazies.
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...I think the original is well worth watching. Just remember it's a tiny budget indie from the sixties with a message it wants to be absolutely sure you get.
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Yeah. What EvilWizardGlick said. Missed that post.
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that towards the end everyones behavior was the same, from the 'infected', the military, and the survivors on the run. And the last shot of the dude and the helicopter was great.It's just a matter of time until Martin is remade.
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Lynn Lowry
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Sep 03, 2009 10:58:47 PM CDT
Yeah, like I'll trust anyone named PeterGriffin1Fan
by nasty in the pasty
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A remake in name only. Also, to everyone saying District 9 was original, watch Alien Nation.
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Feb 25, 2010 5:03:58 PM CST
Knightriders- One of the best movies of the 80's or am I just be
by scott2tune
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