Tell me you've decided to see "The Crazies", and I will introduce it simply like this: Watch at your own risk. Sounds scary enough, right? Well, at any rate, at least I was frightened - frightened of the implications of the brains of its viewers as perceived by its makers, frightened of the dreadful path on which much of the horror-genre is carelessly meandering. Its makers frighten me, in how dishonorably they try to capitalize on the most un-frightening of things. Its scenes, much like countless other incompetent remakes of its kind, relish in the strategy that if you wait long enough in silence, the payoff of a jumpy and startling shot of the enemy's face out of the shadows - or even the hand of the protagonist from behind - will serve in providing some sort of cheap, soulless thrill. If "The Crazies"' intention was to scare me, it didn't. Watch at the risk of lowering your standards of what a gritty, genuine "B" movie like its 1973 original should be, or worse - at the risk of surgically removing any shred of a raw sense of danger in a film that boasts to have exactly that.
From the start, we get a taste of poor David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant)'s shabby, lackluster life. He's killed a man (during a little league baseball game, of all times!) with the gut instinct that that man is drunk and is going to kill him. Later, David's wife Judy (Radha Mitchell) consoles him in obligatory boo-hoo scenes of post murder soul searching. Mitchell's work as Judy is mundane and highly lacking in the kind of sweetness I'd expect in a wife to a man struggling with that kind of guilt. Though, I suppose we must feel sorry for her, after all she is pregnant.
From there, we are presented with an intriguing idea, a paranoia filled premise that attempts to explore the fear of government conspiracy and lack of information available to its characters. That prospect is quickly compromised when writers Scott Kosar and Ray Wright expose us to another upsetting slew of cheaply employed cliches. David desperately implores the town mayor to shut down the town, for fear of its residents' safety. Clearly Kosar and Wright are loving disciples of "Jaws", but they only knew the words, not the music. This is the case here and throughout, an effort scarce in style and really uninspired.
Director Breck Eisner asks us to endure and empathize through a journey with characters we don't care much about. Gas-masked army men separate mothers and their children away from each other in a scene that takes itself far too seriously given its buildup. "Honey, look - there's somebody outside!". Are David and his poor, pregnant wife dead yet? Yes? No? Who cares, at least I can leave now.
Horror, with all of its extremities, has an array of devices it may use to gain rise from its viewers: convincing visual magic, gore, humor, eccentricity, fun dialogue and pacing, observation, methodology, originality, surprise. "The Crazies" is a film which shamefully uses none of these. In fact, its disclaimer, if it had one, should read something like: "Any marketing schemes for 'The Crazies' that possess the uncanny audacity to even mention George A. Romero's name in its ads for this shameful remake principally undermine his likeness altogether. Watch at your own risk". Now, the only worse advertising crime I could fathom would be the usage of those words "Watch at your own risk" throughout its ad campaign as a positive, even if such a warning is warranted in watching.
★☆☆☆☆ (1/5)
Cast & Credits
Sheriff: Timothy Olyphant
Judy : Radha Mitchell
Deputy: Joe Anderson
Becca: Danielle Panabaker
Deardra: Christie Lynn Smith
Bill: Brett Rickaby
Nicholas: Preston Bailey
Mayor: John Aylward
Overture presents a film directed by Breck Eisner. Written by Scott Kosar and Ray Wright based on the 1973 film by George A. Romero. Running time: 101 minutes.Rated R (for bloody violence and language).
No comments:
Post a Comment