The Crazies - 1973 vs 2010

Pretty fresh off of Night of the Living Dead, Romero was still tackling the infection and mass hysteria angle. The Crazies was the bridge from Night to Dawn and it has a great premise. This movie popularized the hazmat/military type of villains you'll see in some shitty Italian flicks later as they try to stop the menacing Trixie virus. This thing really drives people... crazy.

Despite a great concept... it really doesn't do much for me. Almost 40 years later, hot on the remake trend, The Crazies come back. This time, it's pretty fuckin' good!

Timothy Olyphant plays the sheriff of a small town that finds itself in the middle of the outbreak, and most everything about this movie is more engaging than the original. Of course, I think Timothy is Olyphantastic in most of what he does, giving credibility to what could have been another shitty remake.

When the movie begins, he has to take down a hostile character in the middle of a children's baseball game. He shoots the "crazy", and I was very much expecting him to say, "It was justified."

So yeah, it goes on a while and it's all good, but there are a few standout scenes that are pretty damn frightening. Notably the gurney scene with the pitchfork crazy. That dude was creepy!

Going back to the first crazy he had to take down, Olyphant's character had felt guilt over killing the former town drunk when the man's family shamed him for it. What was more disturbing to me than any of that though was how old the "son" of that lady was, acting like her "young" boy would be traumatized, but the "child" looked like he was 40+. Then eventually, there's a confrontation between them which turns into a gnarly spectacle. It's one of those moments where you simply say, "Wow, that was bad-ass!"

In the end, my preference is definitely for the remake in this case. It begs the question as to why they never went further with these movies. Sure, they may contain the virus in a sense, but there's always room for more craziness.