I suppose there was a time when this kind of stuff counted as imaginative or worthy horror. Nowadays it looks a little tired and hackneyed, touching on the kind of themes that were bread and butter for the X-Files nearly 20 years ago (was it really that long - gulp!).
'The Crazies' is a horror / thriller set in a small US town where a downed military plane has released 'something' into the local water supply. People start to go crazy, and as the locals try to cope the federal government responds by instigating a 'containment plan'. Things don't look good for the residents of Ogden Marsh.
Apparently this is a re-envisioning of a George Romero film of the same name. Romero is well-known for using the horror genre to hold a mirror up to society, and I presume that in 1973 his film was at least a little groundbreaking. The makers of this version of 'The Crazies' have come to the party too late though and there's nothing here that I haven't seen before. A lot of standard 'paint-by-numbers' horror genre stuff goes on in the film (a couple on the run, an enemy within, encounter with deranged hillbillies, evil government soldiers in gas masks). It feels just the same as so much else that's out there.
Not that 'The Crazies' is a bad film at all, its just that I was left feeling rather indifferent towards it. There wasn't anything frightening or jumpy in it - not good for a horror film - and although it had good ideas, they're all ideas that have been done better elsewhere. Not one to make an effort to see sadly.
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