I will usually bash on remakes for the simple fact that they’re remakes; I know this is wrong and unreasonable. There have been some (read: very few) interesting and enjoyable re-imaginings of films that ended up being better then, or at least comparable to, the originals.
I was a child when I first saw Romero’s ‘The Crazies’, and I wasn’t exactly in love with it; years later I rewatched it hoping that I had missed something by being an adolescent with the attention span of a squirrel with a caffeine addiction. I didn’t.
Being a huge Romero fan, I find it exceedingly difficult to pick his movies apart. Even when I have issues with continuity (which usually ruins a movie) I just accept it and move along. Romero’s version of ‘The Crazies’ was obviously his, it stunk of his ‘Living Dead’ series to the point that I felt it was a way for him to express ideas and scenarios that just wouldn’t have fit into that set of films. This meant that character development and storyline suffered in a film that otherwise had a fairly decent plot. Considering all the aforementioned, I started watching Breck Eisner’s refurbished ‘The Crazies’ hoping that Eisner excelled in the areas Romero was deficient in.
I’m guessing that Eisner saved a lot of money having most of the movie shot in the worst lighting possible. I have no idea who came up with the ridiculous concept that not being able to see something makes it scarier. While I can fully understand this may be true in real life, movies aren’t real life and shouldn’t be treated as such. ‘The Crazies’ (remake) tries so very hard to be atmospheric; I tried desperately to allow myself to be enveloped by the darkness and become lost in the silhouettes, waiting for the occasional burst of flames or flicker of light. It gave me a headache and made the movie barely tolerable.
I can fully understand the effect that dimly lit scenes and shaky cinematography can play in sucking you into the moment, but this was absolutely absurd. You can’t fill your plot holes with jerky camera angles in an already too-dark setting!
The acting is fairly solid, but you have to be better than solid to make up for everywhere else this movie lacks. Smashing glass and a broad that seemingly will not stop screaming no matter how hard you gag her, punch her or threaten her with a pitch-fork are major moment-ruiners on the fault of the characters. But they’re only doing as they’re (poorly) directed.
At the end of it all, I looked back on Romero’s film and came to the conclusion that while it wasn’t his best, it was still better than the remake. And really, the worst thing about this movie is that it was missing everything Romero neglected in the original. Therefore the remake is entirely pointless; if you can’t improve upon something, leave it the hell alone.
