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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Reviews    Movie, Television and DVD Reviews  ›  The Crazies Moderators: Nixon
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  Author    The Crazies  (currently 1387 views)
Dreamscale
Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 6:30pm Report to Moderator
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I'm surprised there aren't any posts for this movie yet.  I saw it yesterday, and was underwhelmed and a bit disappointed.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad movie, and I'd actually say it's a pretty good movie, it's just nothing that I was hoping for or expecting, based on the trailers.

SPOILERS     SPOILERS     SPOILERS     SPOILERS     SPOILERS

This is a remake of a little 1973 George Romero movie.  Although updated to current times, it definitely has the feel of a 70's movie, and retains Romero's usual social commentary.  It even looks and sounds like an older movie...the film is grainy and the soundtrack purposely throwback.

The movie had a $19 Million budget, and I'm not completely sure where all that money went.  Star power is basically Timothy Olephant and Radja Mitchell.  Special effects are minimal, really.  Set pieces are actual small town structures for the most part, and much of the movie is literally characters walking along roads or in corn fields.  IMO, they overspent, but the movie will make up the budget and then some for sure...so that's good.

The problem I had was that this movie really wasn't about "the crazies", and only had a few scenes involving them.  The real conflict was between some survivors and military commando types.  The movie kind of switched gears about 1/3 of the way in, and for me, that was an issue.

Lots of examples of things that were happening here that only happen in movies.  Some of the crazies did things that they definitely would not be doing.  Numerous "saves" by unseen characters who make it in just in the nick of time, which I never appreciate.

There were several really good scenes...several really creepy scenes.  Acting was actually very solid throughout.  Dialogue was pretty good for such a movie, as well.

Critically speaking, this is a surprise hit, which surprises me.  It is a good movie, but IMO, it could have/should have been a better movie, and should have concentrated much more on the early events, as apposed to the later events.

Definitely worth a look though for horror fans.
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Zack
Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 9:49pm Report to Moderator
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I thought it was really great. Much better than most of last years horror pics and sets the bar pretty high for 2010. I really hope the new "Nightmare on Elm Street" is able to match this film.

~Zack~
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dogglebe
Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 3:16pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Dreamscale
This is a remake of a little 1973 George Romero movie.


I started watching the original and stopped after about thirty or forty minutes. This movie really had nothing going for.  The story went nowhere and the characters needed work just to make them two-dimensional.

I understand that today's world is faster and in your face than forty years ago, and that we need movies to be more in your face, but there were other low budget horror films made at this time and they were so much better.



Phil
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Ian
Posted: March 5th, 2010, 11:07am Report to Moderator
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I really enjoyed The Crazies, I think it needed something more to give it that extra edge that say Dawn of the Dead (2004) had, but I thought it was a really solid film and definitely one of the better horror films that's been released recently.

I appreciated the focus on scenario/situational horror as opposed to gore. There were some grisly moments sure, but they didn't over do it and instead built suspense from some creative set pieces. I didn't realise Scott Kosar had co-written the script until the end credits but it made instant sense, he wrote the script for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) which demonstrated his skill for utilising location and coming up with great action sequences. The Crazies had about 5 scenes that I just loved, particularly the pitchfork and carwash sequences .


"Are you saying I'm crazy!?"
"Oh no, but I'm certainly thinking it loudly"
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Scar Tissue Films
Posted: June 2nd, 2010, 3:10pm Report to Moderator
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Quite good overall, although it was disappointing in that I'd read the script and I don't think they handled many of the key scenes very well...particulalry the opening ones.

Everything happened too fast to allow tension to build and so it all fell flat.

SPOILERS

On paper the guy turning up at the baseball game was a brilliant opener. It was clumsily handled here. The decision to show the town burning at the start really diminished the power of the scene. Would have been much better to start slowly and  build the tension. Also the feeling of close-knit community, so imprtant to the emotional horror was really missing.

The farm scene where Bill burnt his family alive was a case in point. A horrifc and potentially emotional scene, but it all happened so fast and without any build up that there was just no strength in it.

Likewise the scene in the funeral home...a genuinely creepy scene on paper...just wasn't handled with any kind of skill by the Director or editor.

Had a look on IMDB at Breck Eisners resume...the lack of horror is pretty telling IMO. He just didn't know how to handle the material to get the most out of it. The lighting, atmosphere, the pace, set up were all missing.

The pitchfork scene worked well...the pacing was so much better there...the build of tension, the increase of feear. So much more effective than rapid paced mayhem that doesn't give you a chance to assimilate the information. Seemed like he had his eye in by then. From that point on the film seemed a lot more on point in terms of the filming and style. The car wash scene was well handled as well.

Despite that it wasn't bad. I agree with Jeff that once they start fighting with the militray it goes downhill. Makes sense in terms of theme, but it had no dramatic appeal.

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Scar Tissue Films  -  June 2nd, 2010, 3:55pm
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RunningFox
Posted: July 3rd, 2010, 10:26am Report to Moderator
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OMG, just saw this last night - rented from Blockbuster - it was awful - very poor.  Liked the original - much more politically driven.  But this, because they chose to spend more time away from the army side of it, they left themselves with very little to work with.  There's no real threat in the film - they're not zombies so they don't eat you.  They chase you down in the same way, but if you're gonna be tackled to the ground by one of these "crazies", the most you should expect is maybe a wet willy and that's it.

Very little violence in the film and this is becoming a growing trend, I've noticed.  A few years back when the whole torture porn thing was starting up with films like Hostel which was quite graphic in terms of violence.  Well, all those films were rated 18 (or R as I think it is in the US), and rightly so.  But because of that, they're limiting ticket sales.  But now, they do this thing where they make horror films and market them by promising that same level of violence in the film.  Only, when you see the film, that's not what you get because, of course, it's been rated only 15 (whatever that is in US) to sell more tickets.  It's a cop-out because studios are now making money off that brief wave of uber-violent films but hardly giving you any violence at all.  Very lame.

Now, I'm not a gore-hound - I do appreciate the art of bloodless horror films, but when there's no violence in a film that should have it, the film ends up carrying no weight and the threat is less believable.

Predator's comes out soon.  A film with a great potential for graphic violence.  And a film that SHOULD be violent.  But it's only a 15, just to sell more tickets.  And the fact that it's only a 15 is more than likely going to have a negative affect on the film.  Just like the first AVP.  It was a joke how un-violent that film was.  You can't make a "Predator" or "Alien" film and NOT have violence.  Otherwise what's the point?  It's like re-making "The Sound of Music" with no songs.  You just wouldn't do it.


"We're gonna need to watch that again..."
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Ryan1
Posted: July 15th, 2010, 5:33am Report to Moderator
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Underwhelming in all aspects.  Not too scary.  Not too gory.  Completely by-the-numbers plotting.  We've just seen everything in this movie time and again.  Really kind of a lazy excuse for a zombie-type infection story, what with the plane crash and the water supply.  Seemed like a perfunctory setup to the story.  

Characters were boring, forgettable and utterly expendable.  Half the crazies looked alike to me and I couldn't tell who was who.  The ending was cliched and tired.  So, yeah, this was a disappointment.
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RayW
Posted: January 26th, 2011, 2:35am Report to Moderator
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After about a half-hour of watching this like a normal movie I grew disenchanted.
Just didn't care.
Switched over to the DVD extras to mine what nuggets I could from there.

Having read the wiki synopsis of the 1973 version, directed by Romero from his own screenplay rewrite of Paul McCollough's original screenplay The Mad People, I see that the 2010 remake is roughly the same in principles.

    "The script dealt with a military bioweapon that was accidentally released into
      a small town, with the military subsequently trying to cover up the incident
      and the townspeople revolting. Romero revealed that the military subplot
      was only featured in the first act of the script, and the rest of the film focused
      on the survivors and their attempts to cope with what was happening."


So this film is supposed to be not so much horror as action/adventure/thriller with strong horrific elements that propel the situational actions of the protagonists.
The producer/money agreed to plop $250k if Romero re-wrote with an emphasis on "the military takeover of the town".
Done.

So the die was cast.

Lettuce follow the bouncing ball for the remake...

- Scott Kosar wrote screenplay for producers Michael Aguilar and Dean Goergaris, having optioned the rights to The Crazies directly from Romero and they also had a deal with Paramount Pictures.
- Aguilar and Goergaris then approached director Breck Eisner to be director with Romero being on board as executive producer. (Several other "executive producers" would follow).
- Eisner liked the script, but had a different take on it, so he hired another writer, Ray Wright (Puh-leeeaze! Who thinks up of these preposterous names I ask you?!), to do a rewrite of putting the movie in the military's point of view, turning it more towards action and less towards horror.
- Meanwhile, Paramount decides this paltry $20M project is beneath it's new image it wanted to carve, releases it to Rogue Pictures.
- Rogue is bought by Relativity Media.
- Relativity releases it to Overture Films OCT 8, 2008 for production and distribution.

And then guess what?

- JUL 23, 2010 Relativity Media takes over the distribution and marketing operations of Overture Films!

Ha!
Who's got the crazies, now!  

Anyway, all (poor) Ray Wright's re-write of Scott Kosar's re-write of George Romero's re-write of... uh... who was it? Oh! Paul McCollough's original screenplay The Mad People aside, director Breck Eisner re-writes a bunch of it in the field and with the help of pretty much anybody who wanted to.

Click there => The Crazies, DRAFT 02/20/07 CURRENT REVISIONS BY RAY WRIGHT <= for fish wrapper.

Notes:
The "throw away" secondary character of Rebecca had her role expanded because the Dir/Prod "liked her".

Director did a lot of research... ahem! The Director had his SFX people, mainly Robert Hall and his Almost Human Inc. crew do a lot of research to develop the "look" of the crazies with grrrreat emphasis that they NOT look like zombies!

The director (not the writer) did a lot of research for proper military containment capabilities and haz-mat procedure.

45 day shoot, from March - May 2009 for interior shots in Perry, Georgia and April 2009 for exterior shots in Lenox, Iowa.

So that's...
FEB 2007 R.Wright's draft date
to
APR 2009 final shoot days
= 2+ years
Winter's Bone director and producer took about the same for pre-production of their 24 day shoot.

FEB 2010 release date (d@mn near the end of it, too)
= 3 years from R.Wright's draft date
Don't hold your breath, peeps.

Tax incentives from both states drove shot locations.

Budget and time constraints changed many scenes.



Alllllrighty, then.
Ya'll go on and obsess over weenie little thangs in your screenplays, now. Ya he-ah?!  

But first, enjoy Breck Eisner's 10 minute student film he wrote (MFA thesis film for the University of Southern California), AKA how he got started in this mess.

<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px">


Honestly, disregarding the cinematic aspects and focusing on the screenplay action and dialog itself, this doesn't "sound' much different than many of the shorts submitted here.
I can't identify it exactly what the difference is but it's there.

I'll pull a Billy.




Interesting Production notes: http://www.participantmedia.com/files/pdf1/Crazies_Production_Notes.pdf




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RayW  -  January 26th, 2011, 1:31pm
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