The Crazies remake

[MinionZombie]

The remake ended up with 16.5 million for their opening weekend. http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/ Not bad for a 20 million dollar budget. I thought the budget was $12m? That's what IMDb said anyway ... I see Wiki says $20m. Either way, in adjusted dollars, The Crazies (1973) was made for about $1.3m - so the 2010 remake really has the dough to play with to ramp up the scale. Although that said, I would have liked more gas-masked soldier action. I'm currently re-watching the original with the Romero/Lustig commentary on, and that first 35 minutes is JAM PACKED with all sorts of stuff. Indeed the first 40 minutes of the remake is JAM PACKED with stuff, then both versions kinda slow down a bit from there ... but even still, the original has a bunch more action littered throughout ... the remake does feel like it's missing some of that gas-masked soldier action, as it instead pays almost exclusive attention to the main protagonists. So on one hand with a budget ($12m-$20m) suited to the scale of the plot, we've got far more scale than Romero could have ever achieved in '73 with $1.3m ... but on the other hand, with less stuff featuring marauding soldiers in chem suits and gas masks, there's a bit of scale lost, in a way. Also, the remake - while it does have a decent amount - does focus less on social commentary than Romero's original, in part linked to the above statement about less marauding soldiers. It does also focus more on action in general, so it's punchier but not quite as clever as Romero's original. For example, we don't have anything with scientists battling to find a cure, nothing with bumbling bureacrats, nothing with government men farting around in their crisis room etc ... we do get a decent amount of social commentary, more than your average modern day horror flick, especially one trying to suck in MTV dopes as well as everyone else, but yeah - less than Romero's original. Still, all said and done, the remake gets a thumbsup from me ... and I wasn't pleased upon hearing the news of a remake, but having seen it, it's actually pretty good. I'll get the DVD when it comes out too - hopefully they'll pimp out a proper 2-disc edition that'll have a good documentary about it all which will also cover Romero's original.

[ProfessorChaos]

yeah, mz, i've also just re-watched the original and had some of the same thoughts....the original has WAY more military vs. civilian clashes, which was something i wish the remake had focused on a bit more. the remake is paced better, i feel, due to the fact that we don't have all the scenes with the government officials, soldiers, and scientists. by sticking to the survivors, i feel the 2010 version is easier to follow and draws you in a bit more and moves along in the plot much better. i do think that there's going to be a "director's cut" when it comes around to dvd, mainly due to a few dialogue bits and whatnot that were shown in the trailers but didn't make it into the theatrical version....and let's hope that they include a bit more violence and gore that may have been cut out, cuz that's something i felt that was a bit lacking. but still, it was pretty good overall, better than i expected. heck, i may even drop a few more dollars to see it one more time on the big screen when it gets to the cheap theater here in town.

[bd2999]

This was one of the remakes that I honestly thought could have been better than the original. I loved the original concept and ideas Romero had going in the old film. The atmosphere was fine, but the movie just did not seem to go anywhere to me, it just built up and stopped. So I was pumped to see this. I was a bit let down though. The movie was not bad, but not good either. The whole satilite thing was sort of strange and there were just inconsistancies with the plot (why ship all those people off to shoot them?) or why did it take them so long if they picked things up on satilite that early along. The movie was not bad, but not the improvement I wanted from the themes in the original.

[MinionZombie]

Prof - aye, hopefully there'll be an Unrated Director's Cut, as yes, it did feel like it would benefit from a longer cut and a few more snippets of juicy gore. bd2999 -   I think the reason for packing everyone up (non-infected) and then shooting & burning them in the cattle trucks, is simply to be organised and get everyone, rather than roaming house to house, which would inspire panic and resistence, and would be a porous way to deal with the populace. Speaking of which, I thought that bit was really creepy, and a really good addition to the film. In GAR's version the government are generally incompetent, in this version they're generally sinister - likewise, I also liked the bit where the dude who played Aaron the bodyguard in 24 essentially just said "we lost a plane, what do you want me to say?" - so that this whole disaster is the result of a simple fuck up, that's now being dealt with mercilessly.

[Legion2213]

I was already up for buying this on Blu-Ray, but this caught my eye... "Radha Mitchell" Fock yes! The Silent Hill siren is always welcome on my TV screen. Edit: Thanks for the reviews guys. .

[MinionZombie]

It's also got Danielle Panabaker (sp?) ... although she does practically fuck all in this movie, but some of you might recognise her from the Friday 13th remake. Radha Mitchell was rather fetching in Silent Hill, wasn't she?

[AcesandEights]

I heard more good word of mouth about this from a co-worker...I needs me a posse. I just don't know if I'll be able to get any of my friends to see this one...and at this time of year (everyone is busy).

[ProfessorChaos]

what's wrong with going solo, aces?

[AcesandEights]

what's wrong with going solo, aces? Nothing, really. I've gone to the movies on occasion, by myself, for films I really wanted to see or in odd instances when I needed to kill some time, but I do prefer to go with company. We'll see how it all comes out in the wash this weekend, as that's when I want to check this film out.

[darth los]

Radha Mitchell was rather fetching in Silent Hill, wasn't she? Wow, someone else thinks that as well? Hell yeah she was fine. She wasn't half bad in surrogates either.

[Danny]

just seen it and im kinda half and half about it, i think my biggest problem is the one a lot of people had with zombieland when they said "it was a good film, but where were the zombies?" i kinda felt the same here. The starts just builds up the story and never lets up but then just turns into 4 people in the fields for the second half which felt rather slow and weakly written compared to the first half. Not to say its bad, it isnt, it was pretty scary at times and kept me entertained. But it just needed more actual 'crazies' in it, and there was barely any actual screen time for the soldiers either. Bear in mind ive not seen the crazies since like 2001 and barely remember it, but this felt like a film that didnt know where to go. They point out repeatedly theres no escape, they say it like 8 times and i think either the writers, or George's original boxed them in and they didnt know what to do with the second half. 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. That said i did like the ending since it wasnt exactly what any of us in the screening predicted, which doesn't happen often so that was a nice way to leave it. Honestly i can recommend it, but its like dawn '04 ,it starts so big it really sets the bar high so early they cant adequately reach it again. The start reminded me of some hour long tv drama like invasion, the 2nd half seemed like they ran out of money and whent out into remote areas to film and use after effects. i dunno, maybe it was just the pacing but it felt disjointed, still entertaining enough though.

[zombiekiller]

so, who else seen it? i thought it was pretty good, not great but good. liked how it ended too.

[Neil]

I enjoyed it. The first third/half I thought was the best, with it sagging towards the end. I must admit as soon as the infected/crazies started roaring like raptors (or godzilla) I turned off a bit... Why the f*** do they keep doing that crap!

[MinionZombie]

I enjoyed it. The first third/half I thought was the best, with it sagging towards the end. I must admit as soon as the infected/crazies started roaring like raptors (or godzilla) I turned off a bit... Why the f*** do they keep doing that crap! Yeah, like the original movie too, it all starts very intense, and then slows down for the most part throughout the rest of the running time. Fortunately there wasn't too much of that raptor-sound crap, not much that was too obvious either, so I was able to ignore any moments - but yeah - why with that stuff? Human vocal chords aren't capable of it - STOP IT.

[Danny]

Fortunately there wasn't too much of that raptor-sound crap, not much that was too obvious either, so I was able to ignore any moments - but yeah - why with that stuff? Human vocal chords aren't capable of it - STOP IT. human vocal chords are capable of that and worse but it does spoil it i admit, i blame it on the woman in the lab coat in the original resident evil, up till then its zombies groaning, then she looks up, snarls, and hisses. thats the pin point where i think it became acceptable and its been used ever since.