‘The Crazies’ has some scares, but not enough

The two stupidest words in the history of horror movies?

“Wait here!”

Fortunately, there aren’t a lot of “Wait here”
moments in “The Crazies,” a lean little thriller that doesn’t mess
around. Adapted from George A. Romero’s 1973 zombie movie without zombies, this new “Crazies” brings horror home to the heartland as a small Iowa town copes with an outbreak of homicidal maniacs and the shoot-first military sent there to contain the contagion.

Timothy Olyphant (“Live Free or Die Hard,” “Hitman”) is Sheriff David Dutton, who keeps the peace in peaceful Ogden Marsh, Iowa.
He’s the sort of caring lawman you’d hope for in a quiet town. When he
has to shoot a deranged “town drunk” who staggers onto the baseball
field in the middle of the game, brandishing a shotgun, Dutton suffers
genuine remorse.

Radha Mitchell (“Silent Hill”) is Dr. Judy Dutton, his wife. She treats a catatonic man in her clinic only to have him wipe out his family when he goes home.

“You know what? We’re in trouble!”

Something has triggered this mania. Not everybody’s
sick, but that’s the way the fellows in the black SUVs and black
helicopters, and the soldiers in bio-chemical warfare suits treat them.
Not only do the Duttons have to worry about which neighbors are
murderous monsters and which worth saving, they must dodge
trigger-happy troopers who are rounding up anyone they don’t shoot on
sight.

Director Breck Eisner (“Sahara”) keeps the focus on the husband and wife, with a deputy and nurse (Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker)
brought along for moral (and firepower) support. Chilling set pieces in
a car wash and in the high school that’s been turned into a triage
center pay off with genuine chills. Eisner discovered the spine-tingle
of knives and pitchforks dragged along concrete, of a whirring bone-saw
clattering across a tile floor. Unlike many horror directors, he tries
to put value on the lives that are lost, though he brings nothing else
new to this paranoid genre.

The washed-out, “Book of Eli” colorations and stark
locations (flat, brown cornfields) heighten the sense of isolation. But
after “Zombieland,” “The Crazies” struggles to find novelty and laughs,
and must battle the overwhelming sense that we’ve been here, seen this
too often and too recently to experience any real surprises.

The Crazies

2 stars

Cast: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell

Director: Breck Eisner

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes

Industry rating: R for bloody violence and language

—

(c) 2010, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

Visit the Sentinel on the World Wide Web at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.