The CRAZIES remake... from 1988!

[DubiousComforts]

This one sure slipped under the radar. Nearly exact same premise as The Crazies except with George Kennedy, Bo Hopkins, Bryon James and a boatload of stunts. They've even got some white contamination suits and flame throwers. How could we have survived without knowing about this?!

[MinionZombie]

Actually Nightmare At Noon is a remake of Mutant, aka Night Shadows. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087796/ It just happens to tread similar territory. Speaking of it though, I have Mutant on video (bought for like £3 in a corner shop) and I've got Nightmare At Noon on DVD (specifically because it was a remake of Mutant, bought for again about £3 - indeed, both films star Wings Hauser and Bo Hopkins). I see what you mean though. While I never really thought about it before, the plots are strikingly similar ... if not identical in some respects. NB. The trailer for Mutant is one of the 'similar/recommended' videos after you watch that thar Nightmare At Noon trailer. I think I might dig out Nightmare At Noon and give it a re-watch now that you've posted this, it's reminded me of it like.

[capncnut]

I didn't mind Mutant I and II even though they have been pretty much panned across the board. I have them on VHS too.

[MinionZombie]

Mutant II? Or are you meaning Noon? Also, I've got Pjanoo by Eric Prydz playing on my WinAmp right now, and it fits your avatar so well it's making me chuckle.

[capncnut]

Mutant II? Or are you meaning Noon? No, it's not Noon. There was a sequel to Mutant which I think was made by the Italians. I hear both films are in the public domain btw.

[krakenslayer]

NB. The trailer for Mutant is one of the 'similar/recommended' videos after you watch that thar Nightmare At Noon trailer. Haha, no way - I uploaded that.

[Mike70]

This one sure slipped under the radar. Nearly exact same premise as The Crazies except with George Kennedy, Bo Hopkins, Bryon James and a boatload of stunts. They've even got some white contamination suits and flame throwers. How could we have survived without knowing about this?! looks like an irwin allen disaster flick done as a movie of the week. throw in an earthquake, a giant building on fire, a plane or two dropping from the sky and irwin would've been proud of this film.

[MinionZombie]

Haha, no way - I uploaded that. Yeah? Cool. Are you gonna do a review of it sometime for your blog? You should, it's a cool flick. I have fond memories of it. In fact when I was a teenager I did a Bravepages website for the movie, and if memory serves PJoseph (one of the members of HPOTD who still swings by now and then) knew/knows one of the prodcers on the movie (Igo Kantor) and sent the dude some questions I had in a sort of Q&A type deeley. In fact aye - the website seems to still be around, albeit a very rough website, but you know - http://mutant.bravepages.com/ Can't find the Q&A though, must have fucked up my HTML code and not linked it up properly, and I don't know what the URL would have been for it. Must see if I can find that original text as a file, I've no doubt got all the files backed up somewhere on various hard drives and discs. Will see if I can find it and make a blog post out of it. Fookin' nora, Hans Zimmer did the original music for Nightmare At Noon?! Blimey.

[krakenslayer]

Yeah? Cool. Are you gonna do a review of it sometime for your blog? You should, it's a cool flick. I have fond memories of it. Yeah. I might do it as a video review. Wings Hauser always reminded me of Frazier Crane in that movie. I think it was his forehead.

[MinionZombie]

I should give it another spin sometime, but I'll certainly give Nightmare At Noon another spin. I've seen Mutant a few times now, but NAN only the once, ergo I should redress the balance a bit. And you should totally review Mutant. ... Yeah, back when I was 18 I put that website together, and via the below link was my experience of the movie. http://mutant.bravepages.com/experience.html Or for those of an unclicking nature... My First Experience of "Mutant" I remember this quite vividly, I must have been 14 if I remember correctly (I'm now 18), and I was just getting into movies in a serious way, having watched them all my life, it was now that I was buying as many in official boxes as possible (I have a thing about owning official copies, it's quite a nice thing, lol). My local post office had just recently placed a budget video bin in their floorspace and on a visit to get some milk and bread and the like (yes, small town post offices in the UK are all like this, lol), I noticed this video bargain bin. So obviously I had a good rumage around and came across a movie I had never heard of or seen anywhere before. That movie was "Mutant". Looking at the price, it was only £3, so there was nothing to lose I thought, and I bought it (well of course my mother bought the video, lol, I don't think I could have gotten away with buying an 18 rated movie when I was 14 - although buying 15's were easer then than when I actually turned 15! Go figure). Anyway, we got home and it being the summer, a nice hot and bright day, so of course I did the right thing. I shut myself inside with a cool glass of Coke and stuck the video in the machine. From the very first scene, which was Goddamn scary (at least for me when I was 14, I'm somewhat extraordinarily descensitised now! lol), I was transfixed. I watched the movie all the way through and it was certainly an entertaining and original experience. Being a child of the 1980's, I always enjoy a good movie from my birth year - the best year in history - 1984. After that time went by and before I knew it I was nearly 16 before I watched it again, I don't know what happened! It must have been all those Raimi and Romero films I got into (and still am into) that distracted me from this B-Movie classic. So again, I watched the movie and it was still original and fresh, and since then I've seen it a good few more times. Since then this movie has remained a classic of my early teenage years and remains as a classic of my newly found adulthood. So I figured it was about time to make a website about it, this website. Thanks for listening, MinionZombie Webmaster of "Mutant: The Un-Official Site"

[MinionZombie]

As for the aforementioned Q&A with Mutant producer Igo Kantor, that PJospeh helped me out with, I found the original text in an email from over 7 years ago (couldn't find it in my backed up files last night, after much searching). All those years back I must have cocked up my HTML coding (which I was learning for a brief while back in those days) and not linked it up properly. Anyway, I'll post it on my blog and link to it on here.

[MinionZombie]

As promised, here's the 2002 Q&A with Igo Kantor, that somehow I managed to fail to link to properly on the aforementioned Mutant website I put together all those years ago. http://deadshed.blogspot.com/2009/12...go-kantor.html Quite an interesting, informative and frank Q&A too.

[MoonSylver]

Wings Hauser always reminded me of Frazier Crane in that movie. I think it was his forehead. There was a day & age where I would hunt any movie I could lay my hands on if it had Wings Hauser. I just liked that guy for some reason, ever since I saw him in Deadly Force (which they used to play about a zillion times on cable). Never heard of this on though, so I'll definitely have to check it out. Quick IMDB search shows the guy is still working a bit in TV, so good for him.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Nightmare at noon looks like a Cheesy fun ride. However, if we are going to talk about remakes of The Crazies... I also felt OUTBREAK was a remake, without all the Craziness.