The truly great thing about this film is that it will unsettle you regardless of whatever political or social perspective you may be living with.
There isn’t a single fear that isn’t skillfully exploited by this film (and, truthfully, its superior 1973 incarnation), and it so often goes the less conventional route in its pursuit of making you jump at least one and a half times every reel, that by the end of it your nerves are a wreck. As always, it seems, there’s some dodgy CGI and an emphasis on traditional family that marks it as a product of the early twenty-first century, but you can tell that a decent amount of care went into crafting this film.
A military plane has crashed in a small Iowa town, and from it has come Trixie, an experimental virus that eats away at inhibitions and the superego, leaving the id in charge and nothing standing between our most depraved violent thoughts and society at large. Neither a zombie film nor a slasher movie, The Crazies is a film to get deep into your brain, playing horrifying games with your sense of self and of society. With the best unconventional use of a car wash since Cronenberg’s Crash and some remarkably tense and cruel sequences. More than worth your time.
You can also check out the original at Nashville's Belcourt on April 2nd and 3rd.
