I'm crazy? You're crazy, this whole damn court is crazy!

George A. Romero has given the world the essential horror guide to decomposing corpses shifting and eating humans as survivors scramble through a day, night, dawn, land, diary and survival, but in his side projects he's now got a good sideline in getting money off remakes of these films.

Whilst we'll ignore Day Of The Dead's remake, some sort of direct-to-dvd farce, there's no doubt that Dawn Of The Dead was a surprising remake in that it as entertaining, good, well made. Ok, yes, people seem to adore the original, I get that, it's a solid film, not a personal fave, but it's good. I personally found the modern edition that bit better, it was suitably paced for my modern fast lifestyle (In which I do nothing, quickly), was full of great humour, scares, well placed character moments, music, thanks, in part, of course to James Gunn on writing duties, who redeemed his Scooby Doo work with SLiTHER.

So now they grab a more obscure Romero work, THe Crazies, and bring it to a new audience. After Dawn's success you'd think it would be a hastily put together trashy edition featuring uncaring teens being slaughtered, but Michael Bay produced this is not.

No, shocking as it may be, this film is well done. It has character development, you can actually care about the leads, they seem nice not annoying, it's not obsessed with the 'deaths', instead it's obsessed with the survival. We begin with a glimpse of two days later in Ogden Marsh, burning, trashed, empty.

Then we backtrack, a wonderful day, sun is shining and Sheriff Timothy Olyphant is going to the school baseball game, when farmer and gun appear, is he drunk? No, he can't be, he's been off the wagon for 2 years now. So why is he staying statue before raising and aiming the gun squarely at Sheriff Timothy Olyphant's head? Who knows. Well, the gummimint must do, cos by the next night it's time to be taken away in an aggressive manner by people who seem to know what they are doing, but are actually incompetent young soldiers, odd that they can do a good job one day, then look as amateur as possible the next.

The character change issues also affect deputy Sheriff Deadmeat Ridealong, who suddenly becomes a violent paranoid man after being such a cool, down to earth friend for the first hour of the film, it makes no sense, even if he's 'infected' it doesn't mean he'd turn on a dime, and it's not a slow twist. It's just stupid.

But I digress, the film shouldn't be looked at as a sad waste, because it's not. Not one bit. It's a rare film that doesn't spring for loud noises and jumping scares for the audience to get riled up, in being more thriller with horror elements, it's subtle and understated, moments can be slow and building, like a pitchfork and women tied up, or just creepy, a pan across a room, woman in focus, 'Crazy' blurry in the corner, no BANG to emphasise, just the wonderful image.

This is probably why we see, for the first time in 2 years, the Paramount Vantage logo at the start, no studio would want to have it solely affiliated with their studio logo for fear people would watch it and realise, wait a second, good horror isn't about as much gore and tits and jump scares you can fit into 75 minutes of annoying teens, no, it's about interesting characters in horrible situations and how they try to fend for themselves. And The Crazies does this to a T.

Enthralling, tense, well made, well acted, dark, good elements of humour that don't interfere with the horror moments.
It's everything a good dark horror thriler should be, and a shame that no other film this year in this vein could do such a job.

Also of note, Olyphant can't get away from those lowered floor corridor fight scenes, between Hitman and this it's becoming his trademark, where was it in Die Hard 4.0 and, most importantly, Catch & Release? I know Kevin Smith wouldn't have fit into the corridor, but it coulda been funny.

Still, The Crazies might sadly be ignored for shitter films, you should take it upon yourself to catch this cracking flick in the cinema, well worth it.
9/10