The Crazies (2010)

Trailer: 

Check out our review of the original The Crazies here!

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Small mid-west town has a crazy people problem and it’s up to the sheriff, his pregnant doctor wife, his deputy and some other young lady to avoid the crazies and try to get out of town. Hilarity ensues.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Hey! I’m crazy for doing another review of The Crazies!!

• This film should do what An American Werewolf in London did and have all famous pop songs with ‘Moon’ in the title but with ‘Crazy.’ You’d have Patsy Cline, “Mama Weer All Crazzee” now by either Slade or Quiet Riot. “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince. “Stone Cold Crazy” by Queen. “Crazy on You” by Heart. “Crazy Train” would be awesome too!

• Didn’t Dawn of the Dead’s remake also open with a Johnny Cash song? Johnny Cash: the soundtrack to the Apocalypse.

• I don’t know how much I can compare this to the original because I barely remember the original we watched like 2 years ago.

• There’s nary an actor working today that’s as fucking cool as Timothy Olyphant. Weird ass surname though.

• Is that a Crazy? Nope just some “drunk” with a shotgun walking onto a baseball field during play. Typical mid-west American.

• Sheriff Timothy had to show that drunk how fast the bullets come out of his pistol and into his skull in front of all the baseball fans.

• Problem with shooting the town drunk in a small town is you probably already knew the guy and his family. Probably had Thanksgiving with them at some point.

And you told me fool firewater won’t hurt me, but you lied.

• Sheriff Tim is now outside before the crack of dawn sanding some 2x4s. He’s Crazy!

• So that drunken bastard wasn’t drunk after all?! Crazy!

• Bill’s just a little bit tired is all. I’m sure he’s fine.

• See? He’s so tired he’s just running the corn thresher in his barn for over an hour. 

• Not sure what the motivation to have the corn thresher running by itself only to then terrorize his family in their home. I can see if the thresher running tricked his wife into going into the barn and he locked them inside there and then set it ablaze but whatever.

• Something crazy’s goin on around here I reckon.

• I’m getting a heavy Jaws vibe with the Sheriff arguing with the mayor about turning off the town’s water supply because he suspects that the plane that crashed in the swamp near town may be contaminating it with poison.

• This is a farming town, we need Summer Water!

• Sheriff David goes behind the mayor’s back and turns off the water himself. 

• Is turning off a whole town’s water as simple as turning a lever? Because that’s all Sheriff David did was turn a large spigot off.

Wish I were back on the bayou. Rollin’ with some Cajun Queen.

• Billy sure looks super pissed off.

• This town is crazy dead for this time of the day.

• This mortician is Crazy and working overtime!

• People from all over the town are aggressively taken from their homes and taken to a quarantine site without warning or any courtesy. I kinda wish the anti-vaxxers in 2021 were treated the same way.

• Pandemonium as some dipshit rammed the fence with a truck!

• I mean, if the government goons took a few minutes to explain stuff to the people this might gone down smoother but instead it’s complete chaos.

• Especially to say, the sheriff of the town. Maybe cooperate with him and he’ll help out perhaps?

• So the sheriff’s wife had a fever and was taken away from him and is tied up on a gurney with a lot of others from the town. After the truck breeched the zone, all the “doctors” fled the room. Now one random Crazy is killing these patients in the gurneys with a pitchfork. Why? Because he’s crazy.

• Sheriff and his trusty deputy with the perfect handlebar mustache save his wife from the pitchfork wielding Crazy.

• Their lack of curiosity of what’s happening is impressive. I would be asking a ton of questions by now.

• This town is so small it only has a sheriff and one deputy.

Crazy, I’m crazy for feeling so lonely. I’m crazy, crazy for feeling so blue.

• You know this fella is ‘crazy’ because he’s constantly punching a dumpster. Coo-coo for Cocoa-Puffs.

• How is there all these booted cars on the Main Street? Isn’t the sheriff’s department in charge of that? How many boots does this little cow-poke town have? I’m shocked that they even have car boots. Does this town have a rampant illegal parking problem?

• Are they going to introduce or address this other new girl they saved at the hospital? Maybe I missed it.

• Now we have a few “patriots” running around stealing cars and shooting things up. They’re crazy but not THE crazies. Not sure what kind of crazy is worse. One might be curable.

• I don’t think these patriots even know about the crazy disease plaguing the town. Shooting up folks is their typical Friday night.

• MacGregor farm? Isn’t that where Peter Rabbit lives?

• This version is better shot, paced, acted and edited than the Romero original yet is still as boring. Strange.

• “If you’re sick, I’m sick…we drank from the same tap.” Well maybe your wife is drinking from someone else’s tap cowboy.

• I mean, once you actually live through a pandemic where a million of your countrymen die, a movie about it isn’t going cut it.

• What grown-up man wants to be called Scotty? It sounds even worse when he’s wielding a rifle and threatening his girlfriend and the sheriff’s friends.

• You would think that the sheriff would be notified if there was any virus or plague threatening his town from the government? This movie is just having the military terrorizing the town because of the virus without any warning whatsoever. Kinda strange no?

• These government goons were told never to remove their gas masks. So is the virus airborne or is in in the water? Or BOTH?!

• How does a water-based virus suddenly go airborne? I guess if enough sick people cough and sneeze enough it could be airborne. Nothing is much explained.

• No seriously, who booted up the Sheriff’s squad car?! The US Military carries around car boots?

• “This town is dead. It’s dead and never coming back.” Jeez it’s been one day and already you’re throwing in the towel.

• The sheriff has a decommissioned run-down old squad car tarped up in his garage? Why?

• These Crazies broke into the sheriff’s house and tied up his pregnant wife but then attacks the sheriff intent on killing him. Why didn’t they just kill the wife too? Why tie her up?

Mental wounds still screaming. Driving me insane.

• Sheriff David, whose hand was impaled by a large knife, used that same impaled hand to stab the Crazy lady in the throat who was threatening his wife. Nice.

• The wife, Judy, suspects Russell, the deputy, might be a crazy because he was over zealous killing those two crazies that were trying to kill David and Just earlier.

• Becca, the other girl they saved, is coughing up a lung and they don’t seem to care enough. I’d be kicking her out of the car faster than you can say “These prices are insannnneeee.”

• Now’s not the time for a car wash David.

• And counterpoint, why are they frightened that their car is going through a car wash anyway?

• cRaZy CaRwAsH

• “Everything is fucking moving!” Great line delivery sheriff David.

• Why are these Crazies still operating a carwash for anyway? Were they hoping some idiot would drive by and need a shine?

• Welp, Becca is a goner. Killed by a car wash soap tube or something.

• Some random helicopter just blew up their car while they were lamenting Becca’s death inside the car wash. CRAZY!

• Seriously, Becca is really dead? She was hanging from the tube for maybe 30 seconds and chocked to death?!

• Hahahahaha. David was going to threaten the driver of this oncoming SUV and commandeer it. Meanwhile, Russell throws some road chain with spikes on it on the road making the SUV lose control and tumble a few yards until it’s destroyed.

• This driver that David is threatening for information sure has a ton of information. Good thing they just nearly killed him.

• Is Russell a crazy or is he just really crazy?

• I don’t know what I expected with this movie but I’m really growing bored. Not sure if they had to shoot their way through a shopping center full of Crazies would be better but scene after scene of them traveling ain’t cutting it.

• Oh good. More walking through the plains.

• Now Russell is acting more heroic after David beat him up and now he’s come to his senses? Weird. Now he’s more than willing to risk his own life so that David and Judy can make it to the other side of this military base undetected.

• Deputy Russell more than ensure’s his death by not surrendering his pistol and getting shot by the soldiers. He could’ve, maybe, surrendered like they asked him to and maybe they have a cure or would take care of him. He didn’t know. Stupid shithead.

• Has it ever occurred to David or Judy to maybe call someone that they know in another state and get more information or tell their story to get help or something other than roam the countryside aimlessly hoping they can find food or shelter. I know it’s a long shot but they haven’t tried a thing.

• This was another flick I saw back in the day and I remember liking it and now watching it for a second time I wish I could go back in time and slap my 33-year-old self senseless.

• Judy was just drinking from a bottled water. But then next shot she’s pouring the same water into a glass at the diner that they are sheltering in. Why? For all she knows some Crazy may have licked that glass or something.

And we talked about some old times, and we drank ourselves some beers…Still crazy after all these years

• It’s virtually impossible to get into this flick not so much after seeing the Romero original and being bored by that but also because of the past 2 pandemic years that we’ve lived through.

• This easily could’ve and should’ve been a zombie flick.

• More boring action scenes of them fending off Crazies as they try to start a big rig to drive. Yawwwwwwnnnnn.

• The military just detonated an atomic bomb on the town. The blast eventually reaches David and Judy’s truck that they are driving, crashing it. But that was an interesting scene more or less.

• But with less than 10 minutes left what else could happen since the virus has been taken care of.

• Oh wait, Judy probably is infected since she’s had that fever the whole time. Maybe David will have to make the tough decision to kill her in the next scene.

• More meandering through corn fields. It’s as exciting to watch as the actual corn growing.

• Is this Hell? No, just Iowa.

• Nope. Just an ominous foreshadowing that the city they were walking towards is also infected. 

But we’re never gonna survive, unless…We get a little crazy.

Final Thoughts: That was one boring mediocre flick. It neither enhanced or diminished the Romero original in any way shape or form. I mean, it had the awesome Timothy Olyphant so I guess that’s a tad bit better. I didn’t reread our triple review of the Romero classic so my memory ain’t that sharp on it but I recall being very unimpressed. As well as we all were. This remake had some better modern-day enhancements in its favor but the story and the execution was basically the same. Look, the zombie genre has been done to death but at least those (mostly) have the great gory make-up and added bonus of having the walking dead attack. The Crazies are just people who have become brain-dead killers. It should be more frightening not knowing who could be a Crazy (it could be your doctor, a trusted librarian, the local soda jerk!) but when these Crazies act super rabid (for lack of a better word), it becomes boring and predictable. I don’t know, I guess it tried but the real horror about a raging pandemic already happened in real life.

Score: 4 Car Boots (out of 10)

Which was Better?: It’s a close one but I suppose the remake just because it’s easier to watch.