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A high school baseball game in the heartland. Doesn't get more all-American than that -- until a man stalks across the field clutching a gun.
Welcome to crazy country, also known as Ogden Marsh, Iowa, in "The Crazies," a reinvention of the 1973 George A. Romero movie shot in Evans City.
- Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell.
- Rating: R for bloody violence and language.
- Web site: www.thecrazies-movie.com
This one, directed by Breck Eisner ("Sahara") and filmed in Iowa and Georgia, shares the same general premise: A downed plane has contaminated the water supply with a biological weapon. As the residents succumb to their darker instincts and go mad -- beware the pitchfork -- the military arrives to quarantine the town.
Faceless soldiers, in gas masks, herd people into the high school or shoot first and never bother to ask questions later. With no phone or Internet service, most cars undrivable and helicopters swirling overhead, escape seems impossible.
But Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his pregnant wife, physician Judy Dutton (Radha Mitchell), try. They make a run for it with a deputy (Joe Anderson) and a teen (Danielle Panabaker) who works at the medical center.
"The Crazies," adapted from the original by Ray Wright and Scott Kosar, tones down the military point of view and amps up the idea of losing family, friends and a beloved town, and not knowing who already is infected and ready to snap.
But the sick wouldn't recognize it in themselves, the deputy reasons. "You wouldn't know because that would be the sickness messing with your mind," he says.
In Mr. Romero's version, the infected died or went incurably mad without physical manifestations. Here, some of the sufferers develop a dead-eye stare and prominent reddish-purple veins across their faces. They're not zombies but killin' cousins.
"The Crazies" makes excellent use of expanses of fallow farmland to emphasize the isolation of Ogden Marsh and how you can run but you can't hide, at least not easily.
Turning the character of Judy into a doctor, rather than the sheepish nurse of the original, is a welcome sign of the times, and Mr. Olyphant is accustomed to characters wearing a badge. He was Sheriff Seth Bullock on HBO's "Deadwood" and will be seen as a federal marshal on "Justified," the FX series which shot its pilot in Western Pennsylvania under the name "Fire in the Hole."
Mr. Olyphant is closer to Andy Taylor than Buford Pusser, but manages to convey authority and quiet heroism. Mr. Anderson, who played Evan Rachel Wood's brother in "Across the Universe," puts his expressive eyes and malleable look, to excellent use.
Making the crazies appear in the background, unknown to an intended victim, or having them jump out of nowhere are standard horror techniques that don't spook sophisticated audiences. Mr. Eisner, however, manages to inject innocuous locations with menace and suspense.
In the end, "The Crazies" is a credible remake but by tilting the scale toward the town and away from the politicians and military, it loses some of its power and punch. After all, they are why "the friendliest place on Earth" turns into the most frenzied and frightening.
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