The Crazies

Can one call The Crazies a zombie flick?

While I knew very little about this movie going in, my seeing it was preempted by a spirited debate between myself and my horror-loving friends on the various incarnations that zombies have taken in film. It seemed to boil down to two main types: The Undead – that is, those that have already died but somehow manage to be reincarnated into moaning, mindless, slow-moving, flesh-eating beasts (a la Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, etc.) – and the “Infected” – mortal, living people that have some kind of virus or disease or were raised near Chernobyl or, you know, whatever (does it really matter how they became zombies in the first place?), and can be killed in the same way as a normal person (as opposed to The Undead which usually can only die by, in the immortal words of Shaun of the Dead, “…removing the head or destroying the brain.”) To me, the “Infected” are best represented by the speedy, raging, teeth gnashers of 28 Days Later.

So in which camp does The Crazies fall into? Going in, I could literally see no difference between the crazies of the The Crazies and the crazies of 28 Days Later. The premise of The Crazies is that a maniacal, Big-Brother type of corporation accidentally releases a toxin into the water system of a quaint, hapless Iowa town, turning the ever-pleasant citizens into psycho-killers who want to kill kill kill all their friends and loved ones.

(It’s sort of the opposite of The Music Man, where a sour, stubborn, Iowa town is infected by the musical showmanship of Harold Hill, turning the nose-thumbers into a tight-knit citizenry who rally behind Beethoven’s Minuet in G)

In 28 Days Later, the setting is London, and the responsibility for the outbreak stems from a test monkey biting a researcher, but the end result is much the same: lots of death.

But there are some subtle disparities between the zombies in the two movies. Number one is that the Crazies are high-functioning. They can still open doors, use weapons (including wonderfully macabre items like pitchforks), and operate heavy machinery, just like normal people. This allows for some creativity in the way that the Crazies murder everyone they’ve ever known or loved. Unlike 28 Days Later, the bad guys are not relegated to simply biting or bludgeoning someone to death. Oh no. How about locking your wife and child in a closet and setting the whole house ablaze!

That’s really the best thing that The Crazies has going for it, in what is otherwise a pretty typical run-away-from-the-baddies movie. We follow the town Sheriff (the always solid Timothy Olyphant), his wife (Radha Mitchell), the Deputy (Russell Clank), and an inexplicably present Becca Darling (Danielle Panabaker) – who serves no function and has about ten lines throughout the entire movie – as they attempt to escape the possessed populace as well as the military soldiers sent in to contain the outbreak. For our purposes, we can forget about Becca, who, though darling, amounts to nothing. But the other characters are pretty well-written if inexplicably stupid at times. They walk on the open road even as they know that containment forces are trying to eliminate them. They hang out in front of a big glass window pane as they relax in a diner (remember, both Crazies and the military are after them).

There is some minor development of a few themes. Namely, the seduction and corruption caused by violence (if you thought shooting deer was fun, try shooting a zombie), and the disregard for human life in a major catastrophe (You say there are still some uninfected in the town? Screw it, take out the whole area). But mostly, the film is a hodgepodge of zombie movie tropes. Sacrifices are made, love is chosen over safety, loyalties are tested, the weak are eaten, the strong survive. With the exception of about four inventive death sequences, this is all previously mined territory.

Ok. So are the Crazies zombies?

Have they lost control of themselves? Yes.
Do they turn on the ones they love? Yes.
Are they contagious? Yes.

But…

Do they moan and groan? No.
Do they bite? No.
Are they Undead? No.

It’s a tough choice.

I think the fact that the Crazies retain their creative impulses is indeed significant. The basic point of the zombie is that it’s a human reduced to a beast. And what possibly separates man from animal more than higher brain function? The Crazies may not be writing symphonies or painting masterpieces (Unless you count their blood spattering as an homage to Jackson Pollack), but there is something artistic going on inside their minds that allows them to kill with such élan.

It may be only barely so, but they’re still human.





And here’s your special treat for getting to the end of my schpeel. The first line from the NY Times review of Robert Pattinson’s new movie! Thanks Manohla Dargis.

“In “Remember Me” love means never having to say you’re sorry, particularly to the audience.”

Boy, I really want to see this movie. Read the whole review.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/movies/12remember.html?scp=1&sq=remember%20me%20review&st=cse