Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Crazies

So the other night I watched the fairly new movie "The Crazies", and I was actually rather impressed with parts of it. Mainly, it was the closest anything has ever come to portraying a realistic version of a zombie outbreak. The cause is a military plane carrying biological warfare agents that crashes into the town's water supply. People drink it and get infected and sicken and end up as murderous zombie creatures. Here's what I thought made it more realistic though: first off, the zombies aren't actually dead while they're running around attacking people, they're just really disgusting and dripping blood out of their noses. I know that goes against most traditional zombie depictions, but seriously, if some sort of outbreak like that happened, it would be the still living sick people chasing us and not their reanimated corpses. Also, the way that it altered their mental state and behavior seemed more realistic to me. They remembered their past,were cognitive, and could still speak. The illness seemed to target specific parts of the brain, namely the parts that control the conscience and rage. Instead of them being mindless killing machines whose brains had turned to mush, they ended up acting like people with a form of psychopathy and elevated levels of rage. Way more realistic to me.

4 comments:

Drew said...

I saw that movie a while after it came out at the dollar theater... it freaked me out... but then... zombie movies usually do. It did seem to be trying to be more realistic than most, though.

John Harris said...

I really did like this movie (I'll be honest, the government scared me way more than the "crazies"). Its kind of like the "rage virus" in 28 Days Later. And it certainly does make more sense. One thing that has always bothered me about zombie (in the traditional sense, at least) is their persistence and longevity. Things like The Crazies or 28 Days Later (or even I Am Legend, to a degree) make a lot more sense then the thought of the dead just reanimating. I mean, if there is no blood flowing in them, how do they move their muscles? Why do we NEED to shoot them in the head?

Caleb Weeks said...

I like the idea that having "zombies" that are not actually zombies makes the story more realistic and thus scarier.

Anonymous said...

I liked this movie until the last thirty seconds. I would be uncomfortable calling it a zombie movie...it borrows the tone, but at the same time, the themes felt off. It was more realistic, to a point, than traditional zombie movies, so that was good.