The Crazies / Shutter Island
RC Theaters Movies 14 - Wilkes-Barre, PA
We took in a double feature on Saturday that included a remake of a classic George Romero horror flick from 1973 and the film adaptation of a Dennis Lehane psychological mystery novel.
The Crazies was originally written and directed in 1973 by zombie film icon George A. Romero. It shares a lot of the same qualities as a zombie flick, but the threat doesn't come from the dead coming back to life to attack the living. It instead comes from people who have been infected with a virus who have been driven mad and attack those who are healthy. On the surface, this may seem like an unimportant detail, but it adds an element that isn't present in every zombie film. A zombie is already dead, so shooting it in the head is just "deactivating" a body that's already dead, but if you shoot a person who's sick, you're killing them. Now, imagine that the person you're shooting is a friend, or a family member, or your spouse, or your child. The idea that you're killing someone who can't help themselves instead of helping to cure them is a whole different story compared to putting down a zombie.
This is a plot device that was done to perfection in 28 Days Later, and while the remake of The Crazies doesn't quite reach that level, it's a damn good film that lives up to, if not surpasses, the source material.
I haven't read the novel that Shutter Island is based on, but I might have to check it out because the movie was absolutely incredible. Leonardo DiCaprio is gold in just about everything he does, and this film is no exception.
The story is set in the 1950's with two US Marshals traveling to an asylum as a part of their investigation on the disappearance of a woman who killed her children. Anything more that I could say would run the risk of spoiling parts of the story, but the mystery unfolds with several very satisfying twists and turns, and the end result is the best movie I've seen in quite a while. I strongly recommend it.
