Film Review: The Crazies

In 1968, with the original Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero practically invented the zombie film as we know it today. Shambling legions of rotting corpses were soon to become the most defining characteristic of his iconic career in cinema: a career that continues even as we speak - though with an insipid modern trilogy that pales into insignificance next to the original zombie triumvirate, the spark of ingenuity that made Romero's early movies so remarkable has, I fear, come and gone. But long before the likes of Survival, Diary and Land of the Dead - before even Dawn and Day redefined the genre the zombie allfather came to make his bread and butter - George A. Romero wrote and directed a little-known standalone horror film called The Crazies.

The Crazies touched on many of the same themes that would preoccupy Romero for decades to come: contagion, isolation, the struggle for survival, the erosion of morality in the wake of society's collapse. A small town is brought to the brink when a military craft containing an experimental bioweapon crash-lands in the area. The virus kills all those that come into contact with it before reanimating their corpses with a single purpose: homicide. David and Judy, a brave young couple once proud to call Evans City their home, narrowly escape the contagion only to find the odds on their survival slim at best, because the military has arrived, and they aim to contain the virus - at all costs.

 

 

It was a neat premise at the time, though hardly original even then, but between some God-awful acting and symbolism so obvious as to insult an inattentive brick wall, The Crazies was, at best, a decent movie; a good movie, potentially, shackled by budgetary constraints (to say the least) and a flimsy, unfocused script. People tend to look back on it rather more fondly than it deserves, I think, perhaps because of the later achievements of its cult director... but I digress.

The Crazies remake, helmed by Breck Eisner, shifts the action from Pennsylvania to Iowa and makes a sheriff and a deputy out of the fire marshals of the original, neither of which differences are of much import at the end of the day. Otherwise, it's a faithful, though not at all slavish updating of the 1973 film. And you know what? Incredibly, it works. When news broke that The Crazies was to be remade, I, along with no shortage of other commentators, fell to declaiming Hollywood for its dire lack of inspiration; some went so far as to say its fascination with classic horror had reached the bottom of the barrel, though I'd assert that George A. Romero, even at his worst, is a far cry from the bottom of the barrel.

Needless to say, I didn't have high hopes for The Crazies remake, and when the greatest claim to fame of its director was Sahara - that infinitely forgettable cash-in on the success of The Mummy - why indeed would I? But Breck Eisner equips himself surprisingly well herein: he exercises more restraint than I'd have imagined possible in a film of this nature, and restraint is a rare and precious commodity in horror these days, given the genre's contemporary tendency to overindulge in all its nastiest, most shocking aspects. While The Crazies still has a few grim moments - unbidden, a horrific set-piece involving a maniac with a garden fork comes to mind - they're all the more effective because they're not par for the course. Eisner has little time for extreme, pseudo-pornographic close-ups of guts and suffering. There's nothing truly distinctive about his efforts in the big chair, but it's nonetheless a cut above the directionless derivative we so often see passed off as filmmaking in the remake-dominated genre these days.

The script is similarly sufficient. Timothy Olyphant, who gained notice in the foul-mouthed and much-missed HBO Western Deadwood, and Rahda Mitchell, who I fear will never eclipse her role in the darkly fantastic cult thriller Pitch Black, lead the cast. Neither bring their A-game to The Crazies, but then, for yet another B-movie remake, why would they? Nor are their roles particularly interesting; David and Judy are rarely anything more than two-dimensional archetypes, well-meaning rabbits caught in the abominable military's headlights. That said, even unremarkable acting is a step above the awful gurning of the original film, and what the script lacks in character, it more than makes up for in tension, in purposefulness: the action here is substantially more gripping than in Romero's first iteration, the narrative pacier overall and the denouement, though it's interrupted by a curious calm, ultimately proves satisfying. 

The Crazies isn't a great film - you hardly need rush out and buy the DVD right this second - but it's a fine way to spend an hour and a half; it takes a fine idea sullied by superficial limitations 40 years ago and does it justice at last. Slick and refined, The Crazies is among the very best of the films of this seemingly never-ending wave of mostly horrific horror remakes, and though it doesn't quite eclipse Watchmen director Zack Snyder's retooled Dawn of the Dead, it comes surprisingly close to equaling its effectiveness. Colourful, if not crazy, and shocking, if not scary, Breck Eisner's remake is - wait for it - the best thing to happen to a George A. Romero film in years.

Film Review: The Box

Based on "Button, Button", a short story by I Am Legend author Richard Matheson, The Box is the third film from cult director Richard Kelly, and while it has its moments - a few particularly effective chills and thrills right around the midpoint - at the end of the day, it's no Donnie Darko. Mind you, it's also a far cry from Southland Tales, Kelly's disastrous sophomore feature, the less said about which the better.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. Early critical reception to The Box has been overwhelmingly negative, and let's be quite clear: this isn't a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. In many respects, The Box is a successful enough piece of stylish, thought-provoking entertainment that I'd recommend any interested parties ignore the off-putting buzz and come to their own conclusions. The trouble is, having made his directorial debut with the mind-melting Donnie Darko, everything Richard Kelly makes will be measured against that impossibly high watermark, and that's both a blessing and a curse. Rubbing shoulders with such company can only give his films more exposure, but more likely than not, they will ultimately fall foul of the comparison.

Given that, it's perhaps not the greatest idea for Kelly to court such speculation, but The Box is, as Donnie Darko was, a period piece. Set in 1976, against the height of NASA's spacefaring glory days, Norma and Arthur Lewis have fallen on hard times, so when an enigmatic man with a horrifying disfigurement delivers to them a box that could mean the end of their woes, they have some serious thinking to do. On the box, you see, is a button, and if they press the button, the mysterious man will give them $1m. The catch is that if they do, somewhere, someone - someone neither Norma nor Arthur know - will die.

It's a brilliantly simple high-concept, and once you're made it through 20 minutes of dull, unnecessary exposition, the potential of it positively screams. I don't think it's spoiling things to say that yes, they push the button. Of course they do; what kind of narrative could possibly come out of a couple discussing a philosophical quandary for an hour and a half? In any event, what follows, once Norma and Arthur have thrown caution into the wind and done the deed, is certainly the most accomplished part of The Box: a second act that isn't so much sci-fi as an incredibly unnerving creepshow. There's a touch of The Crazies in a chase around a labyrinthine library, more than a dollop of David Lynch in some of Kelly's deliberately stilted camerawork - one particularly memorable sequence has a man standing at a window in the background while little Walter plays Monopoly with his babysitter. It doesn't sound like much, but it's executed with such finesse, such understatement, that the goosebumps will have you.

Sadly, from there on out, The Box becomes a bit of a mess. Kelly takes his high concept too far, explicating on innumerable things that would have been better left unsaid; better, surely, had they been left to our imagination rather than subjected to needless talking heads which only exist to encourage further befuddlement on the part of the viewer. In the last act, Kelly seems to decide that there just hasn't been enough weirdness, and henceforth piles it on, thick and fast and completely, utterly wrong-headed. There are entire scenes that The Box would be a much better film without, scenes which mean to complicate the alluringly clear premise at the heart of the narrative, but serve only to muddy it, to numb whatever impact the climax might otherwise have had.

All of which is a real shame, because each the component parts of a truly great film are present and correct. The primary cast equip themselves well. Cameron Diaz doesn't have the most convincing Southern drawl, and the chemistry between she and James Marsden isn't up to much, but beyond those complaints, they play their parts well. Frank Langella, meanwhile, is a quiet revelation as Arlington Steward, the mysterious man with the box. As in Donnie Darko, the score is excellent, effective even when it's at its most bombastic, though Kelly goes with original music here rather than the who's-who of the 80s that made up the soundtrack to his first film. The period setting, too, is authentic, pulled off well without drawing too much attention.

Sadly, a good cast, a great premise and some fine set-design aren't enough to make The Box compulsive viewing; nor is the man with half a face or the sinister Santa. Kelly has all the right ingredients at hand, but in an attempt to top the brilliantly baffling finale of Donnie Darko, he rather squanders them. That's not to say The Box isn't an adequate way to pass an evening, only that it could have been so much more - if only it had been a little... less.