The Crazies: 1973 v. 2010

VERSUS



The Crazies – 1973 and 2010

I find very few movies where the remake vastly surpasses the original. In fact, I can’t think of that ever happening before, now that I really think about it. Of course, I saw the 2010 remake before I saw the 1973 original, so I wonder if my opinion would be different if that was reversed. In any case, I was so beyond bored when I was watching the original, and the 2010 version is pretty awesome, especially in comparison.

First I’ll talk about the original, although I have to admit I stopped paying much attention pretty quickly because it was so boring. About half way through my boyfriend said to me “I don’t know why you’re a fan of Romero. He sucks.” And you know what? I couldn’t argue. Out of all of his movies, I really only like a few, like the first three …Of The Dead movies. Coming five years prior to Dawn of the Dead, I feel like he used a lot of the same imagery but it worked so much better in Dawn. The Crazies really feels like Dawn of the Dead at times – not to mention Richard France is in both of them. I feel like the 1973 The Crazies is Dawn of the Dead’s unsuccessful older brother. I was so bored that I didn’t even notice that the couple having sex is father and daughter until I rewatched it (and my girl MogulArmy told me).

So both movies are about a small town that is overwhelmed with a biological weapon “Trixie” accidentally spilled into their water. The government comes in and seemingly tries to quarantine the infected while saving the uninfected. The main message is active distrust of the government. That’s really all the two versions have in common, and they both achieve this in drastically different ways.

Comparatively, the government is much more evil in the remake, and “the crazies” are much scarier in the remake, too. In the original they’re much more stereotypically “crazy.” There’s really only one murder committed by them – in the very beginning when a random farm father kills the mother and tries to burn their house down with their two kids inside. Only one of the children dies, and it’s sometime later after they’re rescued. Once the police show up, the father is laughing hysterically, then seems to understand what he’d done and begins sobbing and screaming to help his family. However, as I said they’re much scarier in the remake. They become almost as zombies hell-bent on killing everything. There’s no reasoning with them. In the remake, the same farm father (who only has a wife and one child in this version) locks both of them in a closet and torches the house. It’s an effective scare. In fact, the remake is filled with effective scares, both by the crazies and the government. Although I do want to point out that the ending of the 1973 version is sad. Even though I wasn’t paying much attention by that point I was still saddened by the ending. But really, do you want a touching ending to a horror movie? I’d much prefer that last scare. It feels more satisfying.

I wasn’t terribly sold on the 2010 version when I first saw it. I thought it was pretty decent, but I didn’t think it was amazing. Then I saw the original. It’s so much better than the original. This might be considered a spoiler, but I’m going to go ahead and say it because it was pretty much given away in the commercials and I find it important in comparing the two. In the original, out of approximately 2,000 residents, they have something like 1,300 survivors – “if you can call them that.” However, in the remake there are only a small handful of survivors.

I don’t really want to give too much away with the 2010 version but I highly recommend it. I wouldn’t even bother with the original if I were you. It left me still wondering why I consider myself a fan of George Romero and wanting to leave him angry tweets for effectively stealing my affection for this long. The 2010 remake isn’t going to keep you up at night, but it’s perfectly entertaining. The gore is decent and the suspense is wonderfully done. I found myself questioning one of the characters out loud through most of the movie. I do have to say, though, that the characters make a lot of stupid, obvious mistakes and it’s fairly predictable. But it was a good ride.

I give the original 3 and a quarter stars, Star Search style, except it’s out of 10 so what does that tell you?

I give the remake 8 stars.

Oh and I should say that this movie was highly recommended by my girl NotSoAnnoyed and she has been hounding me to get the review done. So here. <3

Paranormal Activity

Whorticulture.com movie review of Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity (2009)

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. I’d heard so many negative things about it when it came out that I made sure to steer clear, but now that the sequel is coming out I figured I’d subject myself to how terrible it was. I mean, it was SO critically panned. I didn’t know anybody who liked it. I assumed it was in the same vein as The Blair Witch Project, and God knows that was a steaming pile. But tonight, I can say I’m glad I just watched it.

Here’s what I didn’t like about it. First, you couldn’t really relate to the characters. Sure, they were a cute enough couple. They kind of make you laugh in that schmaltzy kind of way. But you never really feel bad for them for going through this because the movie makes very clear that the douchebag boyfriend is at fault. At one point they call in a psychic, and the psychic says in no uncertain terms “the worst thing you can do is try to communicate through an Ouija board. DO NOT TRY TO COMMUNICATE TO IT THROUGH A OUIJA BOARD.” So what does this idiot do? Of course, he gets a Ouija board. And shit goes down, just like you might expect. I suppose you might start to feel sorry for the girlfriend, but only because she has to deal with this idiot who completely negates any female agency in their relationship.

I also noticed there were many edits that really compromised the integrity of this film. It’s all based on the premise that this a found tape, and lots of random conversations are obviously edited. You can’t fully buy it because you see it’s being edited. It’s like in the beginning of Diary of the Dead and you learn that the girl added a soundtrack to make it more suspenseful or whatever. That’s a moronic ploy. If we pretend for a moment that this movie is for real, we still have to question why they edited the middle of conversations and not a lot of the other junk that was less necessary.

Now for what I liked about it. This is a movie that my boyfriend would hate – he jumps at loud noises even when the movie isn’t scary. This movie had enough jumps for a haunted house on Halloween. Also, I was under the impression that the sound effects in this movie were just a bunch of bangs, and that is not true. In the long list of similar nighttime scenes, a few of them really stand out. I think the first one that actually sent chills down my spine was near the beginning. It was this hideous inhuman scream, followed immediately by a loud bang. There’s also a scene where the girlfriend is grabbed by the ankle and dragged out of bed, then down the hall. That one was pretty good.

So this was pretty good, as far as scares go, but they were a bit few and far between. It worked suspense well. I wanted to eat my own face at the end, when they’ve both left the room and the seconds are just ticking, ticking, ticking away. I’m kind of torn on the ending (my version had the ending where the girlfriend throws the boyfriend at the camera, then sniffs him, then attacks the camera). The more I think about it, the more I suppose it was effective, although it was fairly anticlimactic. All in all I enjoyed this movie, even if the trailers DRASTICALLY overhyped it, and the majority of everyone I talked to hated it.

I dunno, 7.5/10? Sure, that sounds about right.

For a review of the sequel, click here.