Blood For All: “The Crazies”

March 4, 2010 • Brendan Veeder, Staff Writer  
Filed under A&E, Movies

**SPOILER ALERT**

“The Crazies” is a horror-action remake of George A. Romero’s seventies movie by the same title. If you go into this movie thinking that it is another zombie movie you will be surprised, but pleasantly so.

The movie takes place in a little Podunk farming town in Iowa. The opening scene takes place during a high school baseball game in which the town sheriff, David Dutton, is watching. A couple of minutes later a man walks onto the field aimlessly wielding a shotgun. David rushes onto the field telling the players to get in the dugouts and confronts the man. David tells the man to lower his weapon and is returned with only a vacant stare. David is under the impression that this man is simply drunk and continues to try and reason with the man as he slowly raises his shotgun Suddenly the man raises the shotgun aiming at David and begins to pull the trigger, but David quickly draws his pistol and kills the man.

David is clearly upset by what he had to do and is even more disturbed when he has to confront the man’s wife and son. What troubles David the most is what occurs the following day when he learns from the autopsy report that the man showed no alcohol in his blood stream. David then becomes determined to figure out what caused the man to do this and he and his partner, deputy Russell Clank, begin an investigation.

The investigation leads them into a swamp where they find a crashed airplane. The investigation is then cut short by reports of a man lighting his home on fire with his wife and son still inside. The policemen detain the man and put him behind bars in the county sheriff’s department where the man just stands and vacantly stares at a wall. David calls his wife who is a doctor and she explains that she examined that man previously a few days earlier and said he was acting strange and had a high fever. David then travels to the morgue to check and see if the autopsy produced any new evidence that could link the two men, but while searching the place he is ambushed by the doctor; he is eventually saved by Russel.

The two policemen then try to call the state police department, but all mobile and landlines are dead. David then travels home to check on his wife, but the couple is then surprised when a school bus and military personal start to round up the citizens. The military take any one with a fever and exterminate them. Some of the citizens fight back giving David, Russel, a young girl by the name of Becca, and David’s wife Judy a chance to escape. The group returns to town in search of a automobile and find an old police cruiser and use it to try and escape. The group starts to follow the high way out but hears a military helicopter following and park in a car wash. In the car wash they are attacked by crazies and the vehicle is destroyed and Becca is killed.

They continue on foot and notice a military car following them Russel deploys a spike strip and kills the driver after David learns that the plane was carrying a pathogen and it got into the water supply for the town.

The death of the military man is against David’s wishes and it is clear now that Russel is starting to turn into one of the crazies. They are almost at the town limits when they come across a military outpost and are hard pressed to find a way around. Eventually Russel comes to terms that he has the virus and sacrifices himself by assaulting the outpost, giving David and Judy time to sneak by. David and Judy find a gas station take a car and start to drive towards a near by city and see a mushroom cloud in their wake.

All and all “The Crazies” was certainly worth seeing and if you like gore this movie will certainly have enough blood to satisfy you.

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