The Crazies

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A film riddled with clichés, like a cheese is riddled with holes; or like someone who can't think of another cliché and so uses the cheese cliché.
A film that has many weird things happening, and I don't mean plot-wise, such as:

- Really? A brand new Zippo lighter, still in the display case and its box and it's filled with gas?
- Really? You use that Zippo a minute later, so you just got that Zippo for that one purpose? Lame. You could have made the dude a smoker and everyone could have complained about it, but then he uses the Zippo to save himself and he could say: "See? Smokin' ain't that bad!" And then you got a zinger!
- A knife on a lower shelf behind a counter? Huh? Why is there in the first place? Isn't the point of having a weapon behind the counter protection? Then shouldn't it be easily accessible?
- Where and when did you learn to drive a semi?
- They nuke a town and nobody's gonna talk about it? I mean a nuked town, people gotta talk about it. Those people had relatives, no? Then again, it's Iowa.

But the good news is that I asked myself those questions a span of about only 10 minutes (yes, the final ten. Shoulda warned you about spoilers).
The story is actually pretty fun, very Stephen King-ish: a town is contaminated by a virus that turns the people murderous. Not into zombies, they just want to kill people. And that's cool.

So there's lots of blood and a couple of interesting moments. The very end is pretty cool, although it might turn into a sequel, which would be very uncool. Olyphant still's got his stagger and gun-reaching stance from 'Deadwood,' and he's again a Sheriff, but that's fine.
Then: Well, then you have the mayor poo-poo'ing the Sheriff's containment idea. That's a first. I hadn't seen that in 'Jaws' before.
And, worse of all... You know the sheriff and his wife are expecting a kid. Okay. Then you see them in their home, before fleeing the town. Okay. Then she walks by a room that has a crib and baby toy-shit. Okay. We get it, right? It was to be their kid's room. But no, she has to touch her belly and say: "This was gonna be your room." She deserves to get pitchforked in the belly for that. And maybe she does...

But maybe she doesn't.

Okay, bottom line: lots of clichés, lots of things that make no sense, but it's still pretty entertaining and it also shows that the American army, under the right circumstances, can be deadlier than the Einzatsgruppen being told that an entire Russian village collectively called their moms dildo-hungry cunts. America the beautiful.
Yes, you know what's gonna happen and who's gonna die, but it's part of the fun with those kinds of films. To its credit, the action starts pretty much immediately, so you don't have to wait 40 minutes to see people die. Because who has that kind of time anyway?!
Also, as soon as a character gets pissed off or angry or flies off the handle or gets aggravated (yes, I am aware these are all synonyms), you wonder if he or she is infected. Unfortunately, they could have taken this to a whole new level. But they didn't, because who has time for vaguely psychological mumbo-jumbo?

But you know what? I'll watch sub-par thriller/horror over sub-par comedy or drama any time of the day and twice on Sunday. Because with the former, you still got a modicum of suspense and lots of blood. With the latter ones, you get Rob Schneider or Colin Farrell. And not necessarily in that order.

I'll conclude with these four words. The words that constitute the executive producer's name and one more I am adding for emphasis (albeit spelled wrong to show how in touch I am with what's going on out there on MTV), just to say this film can't be that bad. Ready? Here it comes:

George A. Romero, mothafucka!