The Crazies remake

[MinionZombie]

The recent activity in this thread finally prompted me to watch the film and it was pretty good. I felt a few more things could have been added to the mix to make a far better ride, but overall I liked the movie, I think it just needed a bit more paranoia & uncertainty on who is and isn't going crazy from the 'virus'. Yeah, that was one of my "downsides" to the remake - pretty soon they're all veiny and clearly infected, whereas with GAR's original it's totally based on behaviour - and considering it's a fucked up situation to be in, anyone could potentially be infected ... kinda like with The Thing too.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Still prefer the Remake over the original, and considering its true budget was only $12,000,000 they accomplished a lot. To Bassman, using Alien as a counter argument to dawn... big difference in terms of budget. While Budget is a limited excuse... it is a factor in some films. Romero's 500k compared to Alien's $10,000,000 big difference and it allows Alien to be done a bit better, plus have access to casting Romero may have not been able to afford. Still in the end and back on Topic... The Crazies remake way better than original film... except one flaw is that it needed more Crazies

[shootemindehead]

I thought 'Dawn of the Dead' had a budget of about $2.000.000.

[bassman]

Still prefer the Remake over the original, and considering its true budget was only $12,000,000 they accomplished a lot. To Bassman, using Alien as a counter argument to dawn... big difference in terms of budget. While Budget is a limited excuse... it is a factor in some films. Romero's 500k compared to Alien's $10,000,000 big difference and it allows Alien to be done a bit better, plus have access to casting Romero may have not been able to afford. Could be. But I've seen many independent films pull some great acting out of the hat. I think casting has never been Romero's forte. He's always seemed to want to hire buddies and cool people rather than the right person for the job. Not that it's wrong of him to do so, but it may have hurt the film in the long run.

[AcesandEights]

I thought 'Dawn of the Dead' had a budget of about $2.000.000. Ah, the hazy world of budgetary claims.

[MoonSylver]

I thought 'Dawn of the Dead' had a budget of about $2.000.000. IIRC Rubenstein inflated the budget for distribution purposes, not wanting them to kmow how LITTLE they actually made it for. Then again, they did get a LOT of freebies from friends & the community at large that they could get away with being a non-guild/union production, so it's kind of hard to say how much the movie WOULD HAVE COST to make either...

[Legion2213]

Just finished watching this, pretty damn good IMO. Some say the Crazies being visably affected was a bit off, and I agree, the mystery of the original was not having any idea about who had Trixie and who didn't, but apart from that, it was highly enjoyable. Gutted when it was obvious that "Deputy Russ" had a bad case of Trixie though, kinda liked the character. I'm gonna pick it up on BD for Christmas as I can see myself watching it again. All in all, it's a good remake and worthy of a place in my BD collection

[Gryphon]

Just saw this on Netflix and it was pretty cool Going to watch the original, tomorrow, on Netflix and compare Heres how i would have done it. They spend the movie actually in the town, hiding from the soldiers and crazies, killing when they have to and slowly surviving, then they steal a hummer as they are all pulling out and finally at the end reveal they were 'crazies' all along and just seeing everyone as enemies and themselves as normal was part of it. Like "Arrrrgh Zombies!" - only serious I did think that was a cool premise, in an otherwise over-silly movie.

[Neil]

Heres how i would have done it. They spend the movie actually in the town, hiding from the soldiers and crazies, killing when they have to and slowly surviving, then they steal a hummer as they are all pulling out and finally at the end reveal they were 'crazies' all along and just seeing everyone as enemies and themselves as normal was part of it. Nice twist!

[MoonSylver]

Nice twist!

[AcesandEights]

Nice twist! Yeah, I agree. Still though, the remake was decent. I do agree there weren't enough crazies, but it was fairly well handled for chop shop movie making.

[Trin]

I like The Crazies remake better than the original. I thought the characters were much better portrayed and the whole sense of the virus was handled better. The original was just so poorly acted. The whole thing looked like a home movie or a high school drama project. I do wonder if I'd feel differently if I'd seen the original back in the day. I hear a lot of people compare the acting and cheesy factor betwee the Crazies and Dawn, thinking the two are similar. I disagree. I think Dawn is decently acted and I feel it is a more polished movie. The Crazies is just bad. However, I freely admit I may have perspective goggles on. I saw Dawn back in the day.

[bassman]

The only thing I missed from The Creazies remake was the daughter lovin' father. How could they leave that out?!? The remake wasn't so bad. Actually quite good in places. But their reliance on jump scares got to be a bit annoying. There must be over twenty in that film... Trin - I would have to disagree with you about the acting in Dawn. The acting is quite bad in places. It's strange because the acting in Night was okay. It's like he took a step back in that department by the time he got to Dawn. As I've mentioned before, it may be a case of hiring your buddies or people you like rather than the people that are right for the job. On the other hand....Dawn was also the last entry of the trilogy that I was able to see, so maybe that has something to do with it.

[Gryphon]

Well, I've seen them both now, and I find I do like them both, for different reasons. The original did remind me of Dawn, in that the chaos scenes were very like the opening of Dawn. Plus, the angry scientist was played by the same guy who played the angry scientist in Dawn, heh, sans eye-patch. I wonder if he did any other sort of characters And was cool to see a young "Dr Logan" (his actor anyway) being just as naughty with his own daughter as the character he would play later in life was (in a different way, hopefully) with the bodies of the dead solders. The remake was sort of the "other side of the story." We saw the government's side in the original, now we see everyone else. The 28-Days-Later effect was kinda boring, though. Very overused in general these days, of course. But, overall, the acting was better and the special effects, of course. Though, I did prefer the lack of special makeup in the original to discern the 'crazies' from everyone else. I did feel more sympathy for this version of the Sheriff, wife and Deputy, than I did for the original versions. All in all, I think it's a toss up, IMO. But, I must say I did get a nostalgic feeling watching the original, reminding me of Dawn, and the "old Romero feeling" I get watching that

[ProfessorChaos]

^ well said, sir. pretty much sums up my feelings on both films. i do wish there was a bit more scenes with the military and civilians battling it out in the remake, but all in all, it was better than i expected. and the original has several faults, but really shines as a great movie in spite of them, in my book.