Spoiler Talk: The Crazies


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Spoiler Talk: The Crazies

Posted by Vactor | February 27th, 2010 at 5:54 pm

Just got out of an early morning showing of The Crazies here on the West Coast and I’m ready to talk some spoilers!

A reinvention loosely based on the George Romero classic of the same name, The Crazies is about the inhabitants of a small Iowa town suddenly plagued by insanity and then death after a mysterious toxin contaminates their water supply. The Breck Eisner film stars Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Danielle Panabaker, and Joe Anderson.

I had a lot of fun with The Crazies. It was tense, had good suspense, had great pacing, was shot well and most certainly looked better than the $20 million budget would lead you to believe. The film definitely deserves its place among the ranks of well made horror/suspense films.

If you have seen The Crazies, then, it’s time for SPOILER TALK! Below are some of my spoiler-filled thoughts on the film, and as always, remember to leave your thoughts about the movie here below in the Comments section.

SPOILERS

– I’ve never seen the original Crazies so I can’t compare, but I’ve been told the original had a ton of promise that it didn’t live up to.

- Joe Anderson was unrecognizable in this film for the most part and he deserves major props for his performance. You may remember seeing him singing and dancing to the Beatles in 2007’s Across the Universe. His American accent is perfect here, leaving no detectable traces of his British roots.

- The movie had some of the best kills I’ve seen in awhile. In particular the carwash hanging. I really love when directors/screenwriters come up with inventive ways of killing that we haven’t seen before.

- Along those same lines, you got a great sense that the characters were not safe in any location they were in. From a barn to a baby’s crib, to a restaurant, and even the aforementioned car wash never let me think the characters weren’t in imminent danger.

- The film can be viewed from one standpoint as just as great entertainment or from a different side as a political statement. I was told the original Romero film has a very anti-Vietnam message and this update can be seen as a parable about the United States’ current military agenda. The one scene in particular that stands out is with the remorseful soldier who insists he “didn’t sign up to shoot unarmed civilians.” The movie also references internment camps and the atom bomb attacks employed by the American military in World War II which I found chilling.

Now its time to share with the class: What did you think of The Crazies? How does this remake stack up to the original?

Topics: Features, Movies | 18 Comments »

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dead man walking

Excellent film! This is one of those you can go back a few times to enjoy.

I had seen the original and thought the message was strong but everything else weak and distracted. This captures “some” of the element but kind of wished Eisner would have pushed the button, however, this is entertainment. Tons of great suspense and action.

Eisner did a stellar job with creativity and quality in the editing. The movie has excellent pace. I thoroughly enjoyed it and can’t wait to add it to my collection of videos in the upcoming months.
Jerry

As far as remakes go, this is a very solid film. I like the original, but was really impressed with how they updated it.
The casting is spot on too.
A lot of nice touches throughout the film.
Yanelis

I have never seen the original…but this was way better then I would have ever iamgine…It was good….IIt was not slow and was very good pasing
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http://www.schoonsplace.com Schoon

Just got back from my viewing of “The Crazies” and I came away quite happy. A couple of points to note since we’re talking spoilers, why did the Sheriff have to leave his wife everytime he went somewhere? If I were in that boat I would never have done that, he had the gun for gosh sakes! Why did the crazies not kill each other? I mean, the three hunters were working together even well into the 48 hour inoculation period.

Did you stay past the end to see the news clip during the credits? It looked like it was a national news cast that was already being overrun by the crazies, pretty cool stuff.

And just to be fair, that was a nuke right? If you are that close to the blast radius you don’t walk away. In Zombie movies I always consider any character to be fair game and I thought the couple was going to die at that point but they kept going. I guess they couldn’t have told the Cedar Rapids part of the story then right?

On another note, when was the decision made to kill everyone? The government looked like they were going to keep the people who were not showing signs so who made the call to kill everyone? Would have been more eerie to flash to that scene where the call was made to shoot overone in the cattle trucks.

Finally, why does everything have to be a political statement? I call bullcrap on the soldier’s comment to be a parallel on current wars, that’s total left wing talk there. Soldiers always do what they are told, why is this any different?

Oh yeah, one more thing, LOVED LOVED LOVED The car wash hanging! Also loved the flash forward in the very first part of the film. All told this was great entertainment, Go see it!
Jesse

I was sort of confused at the end (not saying it was a bad confusion) Amazing movie! But I was just a little confused about the ending. When the satalite sees them walking, does it inform the people to attack the next city so nobody else hears about it?

Also When the nuke went off did it kill everyone even the soldiers? Because when it was the 3 people walking when the one ran into the camp the other 2 didnt go to far so a nuke would have blown that whole place up.

I think (my personal opinion. [I could be wrong]) The government originaly tested this “experiment” on this small town because they could contain it better. Then they tested their army men to see if they could contain it. They told the soldiers lies so they wouldnt take off their mask. They also divided up the people to see how accurate they could get the non infected people and get them isolated or somthing. When they noticed that it would be simple or when they noticed it was turning unsuccessful or successful they decided to nuke the whole place so nothing would get out and nobody would hear of such a thing. But then the satilite sees the 2 people walking by and then they are going to do the same thing to the next town so nobody hears of it.

does anyone think im right? or has anyone thought of a similar thing?
Koodoo

That’s a really interesting point Jesse brought up. About the govt originally wanting to test this experiment. b/c of that, It makes sense that it was ordered for masks not to be removed to implement that fear. Why the US govt would want to ‘test’ this on their own people makes is sad.

The ending: My initial thought was this ‘virus’ had spread over to the next city. And that the ‘quarantine’ process was going to start again. Only saying that b/c it was mentioned it’s air born..
and if it were a nuclear bomb… wouldn’t surrounding cities… ‘feel’ that? or… have some kind of news coverage about it?!

Anyway, i love that not everything was explained–getting ppl to draw their own conclusion. Were they zombies? Think that baby ever got a chance to be born? etc…
I Loved the pace, the action and def. the car wash scene.

Two thumbs way up! Def. adding it to my collection
Max

I believe the “virus” or what ever it may have been, should have been transferred through blood when David killed Peggy with the ol knife in the hand trick. Anyone think that took some action out of the movie. I mean it would have been great to see a better ending then the happy ass ending I just seen ten minutes ago. I also agree with Jesse, I also believe the blast would have taken then with, through radiation or the explosion itself. Too much movie magic and happy endings.
Greg

I was thinking the same thing because the camera kept subtle showing the hand in foreground it seemed. I really thought it was going to start with a happy ending and then he turns. The ending really kept me guessing but after reading your comments I figured it out. They were going to nuke the next town because the infection was “spreading”. It was the two main characters that were “spreading” it. That is why the satellite focused on them and then zoomed out. The had gotten close to the next town and the government was trying to contain everything. Just in case…I also think that is why they killed off the non-infected-in case they just weren’t showing yet. Another theory is that they were going to let them live and then decided it was too much of an exposure risk. It was obviously not airborne because the fed that they stopped in the middle wasn’t wearing mask. I didn’t get why there wasn’t more cars that had been stopped on the road, but I guess that is a minor plot hole. Overall a pretty tight movie.
Liz

So at the end of the movie, quite a bit into the credits, they go to a news report by Cedar Creek. It goes on to explain how the explosion was a “chemical plant accident.” At that point the report starts breaking up and the last thing you see is a contaminated person attacking the video camera then static. Now my question is, does that mean that one or both of the main characters were infected and continued to contaminate the citizens of cedar creek? Or was it possible that the waterborne illness spread to cedar creek? I agree with Max, and I think any sort of blood on blood contact would do the trick to make him “crazy.” So I am betting that they spread it when they escaped. I think that they HAD to “nuke” the place, because how else would they be able to make sure all the water from the town was purified and that the other crazies couldn’t run to the next town? What better U.S. solution than to nuke whatever is too hard to contain? :P
Andrew

Liz, this is genius! If I were from a different country (besides America) I would’ve read that and without a doubt know that the last sentence you said described our corrupt government absolutely flawlessly! Well done(:

-Andrew

“I think that they HAD to “nuke” the place, because how else would they be able to make sure all the water from the town was purified and that the other crazies couldn’t run to the next town? What better U.S. solution than to nuke whatever is too hard to contain? :P”
Andrew

And while I’m here, I’ll enlighten my fellow Americans on how severely FUCKED our government is!
Check out this link. Been a long time, but will never be forgotten.
I love my country, but sadly we are not going anywhere good with our current leadership.

CLICK THE LINK!!!!!

1st link is a bit more complex.

http://www.mindspring.com/~txporter/sec3.htm

2nd is basically more “average person” friendly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA

Search the internet for our gvnts’ corruption and many more results will be revealed.

-Andrew
http://none Chrisrude

You all made interesting points. Just got done watching it and i loved it it. But you all are missing something. There is speculation that the two main characters spread it to the next town. This makes perfect sense because at the truck stop the female drank from a water bottle. If the water was contaminated then she would be carrying the virus which explains the contamination of the Cedar Rapids.
JR

thanks for making it clear for me. i just watched it yesterday. what if both the surviving characters turned into a crazy. the lady drank the water and she had the fever-plus if her baby would be born, symptoms would be passed to it.. her husband got the blood on blood contact after escaping the quarantine place, so he might have the symptoms but probably they are slowly growing in his system..
Kame

The lady that drank the bottled water would not get sick from drinking that water. Remember, it’s bottled water shipped from a totally different part of the country. Now if she had been stupid enough to drink water from a sink or refrigerator, then she would have become infected.
Alex

The ending with the satellite didn’t have anything to do with the two main characters being infected or not. The government discovered people who escaped and could harm them in two ways: 1 They could possibly be infected and spread it or 2 they would tell everyone what happened. So the way to stop both they will start again with the new city. In my opinion the guy wasn’t affected from the blood on blood contact because he would of been crazy before they reached the other city. Some people are immune to certain things and by how the movie went both of the main characters were immune somehow. Whether they die or not in the next quarantine is up to you. They most likely died cause the satellite discovered them far from the city.
http://none Chrisrude

Kame not all bottled water is shipped. Some brands may be bottled locally. Im not saying this is true however it is plausible.
guitar-guy

I finally understood the end. The incubation period was 2 days, so they obviously didn’t have it or they would be dead. But the government didn’t want to take any chances of it escaping, that’s why they slaughtered the clean people too. So the satellite saw that the couple made it to the next town, which meant that they had to nuke the next town too, just to be safe. They wanted everyone from the original infected town dead.


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