The Crazies (2010) Review Thread (Use Spoiler Tags)

[J_UNTITLED]

From The Hollywood Reporter...

"Timothy Olyphant has signed on to star in "The Crazies," Overture's remake of the George Romero horror movie being directed by Breck Eisner.

The story revolves around the inhabitants of a small Kansas town who are beset by death and insanity after a plane crash lets loose a secret biological weapon into the water supply. Olyphant is playing the town's sheriff.

Scott Kosar and Ray Wright wrote the screenplay.

Michael Aguilar and Dean Georgaris are producing, with Romero executive producing. Overture's Sean Furst is overseeing for the studio.

Olyphant, repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners, starred in "Hitman" as well as "Live Free or Die Hard." He next appears in an upcoming arc on FX's "Damages" opposite Glenn Close."

[WyldeMan45]

Release Date: September 25, 2009
Director: Breck Eisner
Writer: Ray Wright, Scott Kosar
Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Reegan, Danielle Panabaker, Joe Anderson and Justin Welborn


This is the very first look at Overture Films' The Crazies, which features star Timothy Olyphant in an uncomfortable position. Directed by Breck Eisner, the story revolves around the inhabitants of a small Kansas town who are beset by death and insanity after a plane crash lets loose a secret biological weapon into the water supply. Radha Mitchell, Joe Reegan, Danielle Panabaker, Joe Anderson and Justin Welborn also star in the remake of George A. Romero's film that's arriving in theaters September 25th.



First Set Report:

THE CRAZIES have invaded Central Georgia. Loosely based on the George Romero film of the same title from 1973, this "re-imagining," to use the words of director Breck Eisner (SAHARA, the forthcoming CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON remake), uses the original’s plot device as a starting point. Like the original, a mysterious virus is infecting the residents of a small town. The military invades the town, attempting to contain the situation and cover it up. From there, this new incarnation of the story takes off in its own direction. The remake stars Timothy Olyphant (HITMAN and DEADWOOD) as the Sheriff; Radha Mitchell (SILENT HILL) as Judy Dutton, the town doctor and pregnant wife of the Sheriff David Dutton; Joe Anderson (THE RUINS) as Deputy Russell and Danielle Panabaker (FRIDAY THE 13TH) as Becca, a hospital co-worker of Judy’s.

On a chilly night in Fort Valley, Georgia at the Peach County High School, Bloody-Disgusting spent the evening on set observing one of the film’s biggest scenes. Hundreds of extras are on hand for the elaborate shoot, which involves busloads of infected "crazies" being transported to an internment camp by the military. Helicopters swoop overhead and large military caravans are parked around the fenced-in area, ominous-looking military personnel adorned in green biohazard outfits and wielding large automatic weaponry. Fake movie rain is being sprayed overhead to add some atmosphere. Coupled with the natural winds and cold temperatures, the scene is as uncomfortable for those observing offscreen as it is the characters acting within the film.

"In this scene we’re lining up, basically heading to the concentration camp and we don’t know what’s going to happen to us," explains Radha Mitchell. "There’s been this situation where this chemical weapon has been dumped into the water supply system. This town has been infected, so everyone is sort of victimized by that situation."

This scene is crucial in terms of scope and in relation to the central character arc of the story. "[My character] has an elevated temperature because she’s pregnant," says Mitchell. "Of course they don’t believe that or they don’t care. So she’s going in one direction and he’s going in the other and its hopefully going to be quite dramatic."

When asked about her svelte figure in light of the pregnancy, Mitchell jokes: "Well, she’s not that pregnant. She’s, like, skinny pregnant."

Sadly, the Crazies of tonight’s shoot are only in the early stage of the infection, meaning there are no veiny, bloody, drooling infected racing around on the attack, at least not on this particular night. "There are five stages of "The Crazies," explains director Breck Eisner. "The first is before anything happens, the fifth is when you’re dead. The second stage is a performance-based craziness which is somebody you know acting differently but not looking differently at all. The next two stages are various levels of physical differences."

The image that most immediately comes to mind when you hear about "the infected" in a horror movie is something zombie-like, but Eisner says he and makeup designer Rob Hall have worked hard to differentiate from that look, using actual diseases as a reference point for the character design. "We had a lot of references. We used Ebola, Rabies, Tetanus. There are a couple of other disease references. We went through these really horrific books. We took Steven Johnson Syndrome ("a life-threatening condition affecting the skin in which cell death causes the epidermis to separate from the dermis," according to Wikipedia) and said, ‘What if instead of weeks it took 12 hours?’ But by the end of the movie its quite pronounced."

"There's a certain amount of medical accuracy you have to have," adds makeup designer Rob Hall. "Then there's a cinematic expectation, so it's trying to hover between all that stuff. And we tried to extrapolate on the real diseases... Then we combined it all and played with it a little bit."

"There's been a really conscious effort to steer clear of [QUARANTINE] and to steer clear of zombies," says Hall. "Our guys, they're full of this virus. They're almost like they're the opposite of dead. There's too much life in them so they're like bursting at the seams. Their faces are red and there are blood blisters and veins and they're very vascular."

Timothy Olyphant in The Crazies Remake "I think it looks great," Timothy Olyphant says of the makeup. "They did a great job. It’s really horrific looking. They are strained looking. Their bodies are kind of arched and their veins are popping out and their blood vessels are popping. Their eyes are kind of blood [shot]."

Once the infected go fully, well, crazy, they maintain some semblance of their former self and their former abilities and motivations. "It unlocks these deep latent qualities in people," says Eisner. "There are these hunter characters, for example, who we meet when they are in the act of actually hunting and they stumble on a plot point. Those hunters will come back in the movie infected. It’s not a zombie movie, it doesn’t turn them into creatures of a certain agenda. You maintain your identity to a degree or your drive or your persona. It just becomes extremely heightened and focused to a point of almost absurdity."

The production is centered in Perry, GA and shooting all around the Central, Georgia region. The state is offering a 30 percent tax break for film productions, which made the shoot a suitable double for the Iowa town of Ogden Marsh in which the story is based. "I really wanted the wide open plains," says Eisner. "It takes place in Iowa and we are doing two weeks [there] starting Tuesday. What worked nicely here is we could have that same scope. There are wide open spaces and old houses and this school (Peach County High School) and a truck stop and a car wash. It fits the look of the movie."

"I wanted this idea that our heroes are not trapped in small boxes, but open spaces that go on for miles and miles and miles. There’s literally nowhere to hide."

Olyphant describes his Sheriff character as a man who’s not quite ready for fatherhood, much less protecting his town’s citizens from a deadly virus outbreak. "He’s in a situation that he thought would be kind of a cush gig," says Olyphant. "And when the shit hits the fan, he thinks ‘This is not the job I signed up for.’ He starts from there."

Although his character wasn’t fully fleshed out when he first read the script, Olyphant was able to collaborate with Eisner in order to broaden the Sheriff Dutton character. "What I thought was interesting about it was tapping into that feeling of being an expectant father," says Olyphant. "No matter who you are, you just want to run and get out. You could be married for ten years and then the moment your wife’s pregnant, you just think, ‘****.’"

Olyphant also says the title and the plot drew him to the project. "You have these scenes that are just nasty," he says with a grin. "Just downright ****ing scary. And they’re fun. You’re always trying to find the humor without losing the truth of it."

The roles have been quite physically demanding for the cast, often in some unexpected ways. "My character gets tossed around," Danielle Panabaker says of her role as Becca. "We were shooting a scene in a barn and I got my arm hurt and last week I accidentally got hit in the mouth with a rifle. I'm totally accident-prone! It's Murphy Law: If it's going to happen, it's going to happen to me."

Panabaker says her character has a surrogate-mother kind of relationship with her Judy. When she is thrust into the survival situation with her boss, Sheriff Dutton and Deputy Russell, she has little time for bonding before the action starts going full force. "I love that it start moving right away," says Panabaker. "There are no secrets. There's something wrong in this town."

The military point-of-view from the original Romero film has been totally stripped from the re-imagining. When Eisner was brought on board the project, he says the movie turned to something more along the lines of a BOURNE movie rather than horror. "I wanted to get rid of the point of view of the military," says Eisner. "Any time you [have that], it goes away from horror and it goes to action"

"To me it was much more interesting being in the point of view of our townsfolk and with this oppressive, nameless, faceless force of the military and the bio-containment suits wandering around. That’s putting them through the terror [along with] the other infected Crazies that are roaming the town."

The result is what Eisner hopes will be a character-driven horror film, but that doesn’t mean the R-rated film will avoid from the blood and guts by any means. "We’re not shying away from blood and blood hits. Its visceral, but I wanted a real quality to it. It’s horrific and graphic."

THE CRAZIES hits theaters September 25 from Overture Films.


Danielle Panabaker uses her Twitter page for almost daily updates on the production of the film, with casting news and new photos as well so be sure to stop by if you are wanting updates on this movie as production progresses - http://twitter.com/TheCraziesFilm

[WyldeMan45]

Source: ShockTillYouDrop.com
April 16, 2009

Danielle Panabaker - star of this year's Friday the 13th and the Kevin Costner serial killer thriller Mr. Brooks - is returning to the horror genre once again for The Crazies, directed by Breck Eisner. Joined by Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell and Joe Anderson, Panabaker faces not a masked maniac this time but a town of infected residents. Shock recently sat down with the actress on the Perry, Georgia set of The Crazies. For a full report click here.

ShockTillYouDrop.com: So, when we were doing Friday the 13th...

Danielle Panabaker: When we last spoke...

Shock: You were talking about following that film up with a different project. What wound up happening?

Panabaker: Yeah, that was a totally different project. I had met Breck but didn't realize they were interested. I'm still planning on going to do Weakness and The Prodigy after that, but everything ended up working really well with the timing of this. It was perfect.

Shock: What did you think of the script? It's a fairly radical turn from the horrors of Friday the 13th.

Panabaker: It's good. I love. I love that it starts moving right away. There's no secrets about what's going on. Something's wrong in this town and it just goes which I like.

Shock: Well, you're a character that isn't in the original.

Panabaker: Yes, I haven't seen the original. I've read the description on IMDB. I need to see it. That's my homework for the weekend. But the character is sort of there, so it's four instead of five in this one, but it's good. I think there's a lot between my character and Radha's character is really interesting just in terms of like a surrogate mother-daughter relationship that I really like and I love working with Radha. I think she's really talented.

Shock: And you're the daughter of who?

Panabaker: You don't meet my parents in the film. My character Becca works for Radha Mitchell's character at her doctor's office and they have a really good rapport. Radha's character teases Becca about all of her extracurricular activities as she hangs out with boys. She's involved in her life which is cool.

Shock: We've been hearing so much about this car wash scene. What's entailed there..

Panabaker: Oh my gosh, that's because we just finished it. We were there all week last week. But, from what I hear it's going be really cool. I'm too afraid to watch playback or anything, or dailies, but Radha and Tim and Joe really loved what they were seeing and everybody says great things about the dailies. It was intense to shoot, I mean, we certainly went all the way. So I think it will be really great. I'm excited. It's a whole long sequence. We pull into the carwash to hide from the helicopters and things go very awry. The carwash is moving, people get wet, everyone gets soaked actually.

Shock: So it this one of those old monster '70s carwashes with the big things that come down on the car and roll over it and all that business?

Panabaker: It's one that you get in and you put your car in neutral and it moves your car, which is like the ones I know in L.A. You park your car and everything moves around it, but in this one, the car actually moves down a long – I don't know what you would call it, channel, tunnel, something like that. You get the picture.

Shock: Were you hesitant to jump into another horror film? Are you afraid of the scream queen label?

Panabaker: I'd love to be a scream queen. I think it's fun. I think you get to go so many places with something like this and there's so many different notes that my character, as an actor, gets to hit because you see her before everything starts going wrong in the town and she's very innocent, fun, and young. And then there's a really dark journey that my character gets to take that you don't necessarily get to take in just a romantic comedy. Pretty dark places. It's fun for me. I don't know why, but maybe I have a very warped reality, but I'm really happy to be here. I was really excited to work with Breck too. I think he has a lot to say and as sort of a newish director I'm anxious to see where his career goes and what he does.

Shock: How hardcore are your scenes?

Panabaker: They're pretty hardcore. Yeah, we're scared. Adrenaline is running. It's funny, we were rehearsing a scene in the carwash last week and no one's around. It was just the four actors and Breck watching and we're rehearsing and we're really, even in rehearsal, just totally committed and the scene was just going and going and then Breck looks at Joe and goes, "Joe are you okay?" And Joe's like, "I was just acting." So we're there. It's intense. I feel like, especially after all the stuff in the carwash just because that's fresh on my mind, there were definitely takes where my heart was still beating afterward and it's scary.

Shock: You're used to make-up prosthetics at this point - what did you think of the make-up when you first saw some of the crazies?

Panabaker: Well, this one's different from Friday the 13th because Friday was big and really scary. Big and scary in a different kind of way than I think these crazies - to see them everything down to the contacts. I don't know how much you've seen, but they're really...this feels like a disease, like an infectious disease and there's something blood-curdling about it. And to see the actors in full make-up is grotesque in a way. I'm fascinated by it all. They have their own trailer for effects makeup and we actors aren't really allowed in there, but it's cool to see what's going on in there, we can go take a peek.

Shock: You got knocked out cold while shooting Friday the 13th. Did anything happen here? Is it just as challenging?

Panabaker: It's funny, on Friday the original death, I don't know how much this has even been out yet, the original death was completely different than that one. That one was sort of thrown together at the last minute because of logistics. With this one, my character gets tossed around again. We were shooting a scene in a barn and I got my arm hurt and last week I accidentally got hit in the mouth with a rifle. I'm totally accident prone, it's unfortunate, it's Murphy's Law. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen to me.

Shock: So are they going to keep the shot of you getting hit in the face?

Panabaker: No, it was a complete accident. It's not in the film at all. It's funny, I've been doing this thing on Twitter where I put stuff on Twitter and I wrote, "Shooting the carwash, accidentally got hit in the face by a rifle" and one of the guys posted back, "Yeah, accidentally…"

Shock: That was me...

Panabaker: That was you? I didn't know that! I did! It was a complete accident. I wonder if it'll ever be in the bloopers because you see us turning around and the rifle accidentally hits me in the face and then you see everyone turn back around and I've got my hands on my face. So, we definitely did not stay in the moment. The good news was my lip wasn't split and it was just, onward...

Shock: With this string of horror films now, were you interested in horror before? Has this sparked your interest in that further?

Panabaker: It's absolutely sparked my interest and I think being a part of Friday and getting to know Brad and Andrew, I have just the highest regard for them. Brad and Andrew are good at this. I did a horror film with them for a reason, because they're so good at their job to understand what goes into it and to understand the formula of it was really fascinating for me. I'm still fairly young and new to the business. So, understanding all of the different aspects of filmmaking and what goes into it is fascinating to me, and understanding the different genres. I think this has a different feel to it than Friday did, we don't have Jason. There's an infectious disease essentially going around. It's really cool to me, I got to hang out a little bit with one of the producers who are involved in this film and just talking to them about why they got involved and the social commentary on being responsible with these biohazardous weapons. Horror films, yes, so I had never heard of George Romero prior to getting this script...I know, I know. [laughs] Yeah, I absolutely started with the Jason series and then with the Romero.

Shock: What do you find more terrifying, a masked killer or something that you can't see, like an infectious disease?

Panabaker: For me it would be the infectious disease absolutely because with the killer, you know what's coming. If Jason's coming for you, he's coming for you. That's it. It's over. But with something like this, I think the unknown aspect of what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, how it's going to affect you. They've really thought through what this infection means and what becoming crazy means. So, for me it would definitely be the infectious diseases. I'm a germaphobe.

Shock: Do you think that it is more terrifying to be confronted with the paranoia of the people that don't know who is infected and who is not, or the actual manifestation of the disease itself?

Panabaker: I don't know which is scarier. There's a great moment in this film, one of my favorites for me as an actor, is the scene where my character, after understanding that everyone's become infected and my character's already been through a really traumatic experience. She meets up with her boyfriend, but there's this moment of this person who you love and trust and have all this history with, like, "Oh my God, what's going to happen?" You don't know and I think that's really scary. Also, the word paranoia stuck with me. The idea that these people, not knowing, I think it goes back probably to a big fear of the unknown and not knowing how that affects people and changes them, you know, you think about a mother being protective over her child, take that to an Nth degree. So the paranoia's pretty scary too. It's all scary.

Shock: So what are your thoughts on the likelihood of something like this actually coming to pass? Does that cross your mind as you're shooting this, that this could be a very real thing?

Panabaker: Absolutely. It could be and I think it's a commentary on social responsibility. Its great having all this technology and all this information, but with that information comes responsibility to be conscious and protective and not disregard the value and I think ultimately how fragile life can be. I know that sounds sort of cliché and cheesy, but with something like this, if something got into the water, and that's the scary part, how quickly it would expand? What's so cool about this disease is how perverse it makes everyone. The school principal who works with the kids and whatever, when he goes crazy, he is trying to kill the kids. That's what's fascinating to me about this disease is like, what it brings out of these people.

Shock: What are their true feelings are.

Panabaker: Yeah, dark, messed up stuff.

Shock: If your character was to go crazy, what would she do?

Panabaker: What would she do? That's an excellent question. I don't know. She works at the doctor's office so instead of taking care of people...she'd be coming after them with all the medical supplies.

Shock: What would Danielle Panabaker do?

Panabaker: What would I do? What is my deep, dark...oh, I don't know. I don't know. I'd probably go after all of the people who ever told me no in my life.

Shock: How big's that list?

Panabaker: Oh man. [laughs] I don't know. It's cool though, it's cool to think about. I don't know. That's kinda dark too though.

[master_8ball]

Cannot wait for this movie... I had hopes Romero would be directing, oh well...

Old horror moives I have always wanted remade:
Last House on the Left- check
The Hills Have Eyes- check
The Crazies- check

[WyldeMan45]

Overture FIlms just contacted Bloody-Disgusting to let us know that they have shifted their remake of The Crazies from its planned September 25th date all the way to February 26, 2010. A reinvention loosely based upon 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. Directed by Breck Eisner, the film stars Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Reegan, Danielle Panabaker, Joe Anderson and Justin Welborn. Check out a long synopsis below.

Imagine living in a small town where everything is safe and happy…until suddenly it isn’t. Imagine your friends and neighbors going quickly and horrifically insane. In a terrifying tale of the “American Dream” gone horribly wrong, four friends find themselves trapped in their hometown in The Crazies, a reinvention of the George Romero classic directed by Breck Eisner from a screenplay by Ray Wright (Pulse, Case 39) and Scott Kosar (The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).

David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) is sheriff of Ogden Marsh, a picture-perfect American town with happy, law-abiding citizens. But one night, one of them comes to a school baseball game with a loaded shotgun, ready to kill. Another man burns down his own house…after locking his wife and young son in a closet inside. Within days, the town has transformed into a sickening asylum; people who days ago lived quiet, unremarkable lives have now become depraved, blood-thirsty killers, hiding in the darkness with guns and knives. Sheriff Dutton tries to make sense of what’s happening as the horrific, nonsensical violence escalates. Something is infecting the citizens of Ogden Marsh…with insanity.

Now complete anarchy reigns as one by one the townsfolk succumb to an unknown toxin and turn sadistically violent. In an effort to keep the madness contained, the government uses deadly force to close off all access and won’t let anyone in or out – even those uninfected. The few still sane find themselves trapped: Sheriff Dutton; his pregnant wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell); Becca (Danielle Panabaker), an assistant at the medical center; and Russell (Joe Anderson), Dutton’s deputy and right-hand man. Forced to band together, an ordinary night becomes a horrifying struggle for survival as they do their best to get out of town alive.

Source: Overture Films

[cartman781]

I want Romero's The Crazies on Blu-ray

[WyldeMan45]

Beyond the break you can get your first ever look at Overture Films' The Crazies, courtesy of a two-minute behind-the-scenes featurette presented by MTV. The clip displays a rabid zombie attack sequence along with interviews with stars Radha Mitchell, Timothy Olyphont and Danielle Panabaker, along with director Breck Eisner. The story revolves around the inhabitants of a small Kansas town who are beset by death and insanity after a plane crash lets loose a secret biological weapon into the water supply. The remake of George A. Romero's classic film arrives in cinemas February 26, 2010.

Source and Video

[kwayneg]

Who's going to see this, it looks intense


http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/thecrazies/

[Col. Zombie]

Yes, I will be definitely be going to see this.

[redtornado]

I havent seen the original, but its on my to do list.

Saw the trailer the other day, it looked like a must see movie to me.

[jasonicus]

The original is fantastic. From what I have heard, this looks very promising.

[LynxFX]

Looks pretty interesting. Great use of that song at the end of the trailer.

[redtornado]

I just picked up the original from Blue Underground. Cant wait to see it tonight

[ShelbyGT500]

Looks pretty good. Will have tio check this out.

[JonBidinger]

Looks pretty sweet. Sounds like a definite watch. Hopefully BU releases the original on BD to tie-in.

[redtornado]

The original was dated, and boring as hell. There were also some seriously ugly guys in this movie.

This is a remake Im actually thinking will be better.

[Propellarhead9]

It looks like it has potential to be pretty good.

[Nielsb90]

Cannot wait! I love these apocalyptic/horror movies

[wrighta81]

I think that the only good thing to come from this will be the original on Blu. I hope I'm wrong but I just can't see this being that good. The film looks like every other remake out there.

[jasonicus]

From the trailer, the people look more zombi-ish than in the original, but I liked the vibe of it overall. Hopefully, they don't water it down.