New on DVD: The Crazies

David Dutton is the even-tempered sheriff of the small Iowa town of Ogden Marsh. It's a real nice place full of real nice people, a place where the sheriff calls just about everybody by their first names. 

Life is good here. And it's about to get better for David and his pretty wife, Judy, who are expecting their first child. 

But that blessed event is still six months away. In the meantime, about the worst the sheriff has to contend with is an occasional speeder. The rest of his time? Well, that's spent walkin' the town, shakin' hands, slappin' backs and maybe taking in a leisurely local baseball game on a lazy summer afternoon.

It's at just such a game, though, on just such a lazy afternoon that David Dutton's idyllic existence starts to come undone. A local farmer named Rory, who once had a reputation as the town drunk, walks glassy-eyed into the middle of right field ... carrying a shotgun. And David has to shoot him. 

David's loving wife reassures him that he did the right thing, that it'll be OK.

It won't. 

Within a day, other townspeople start acting odd. Lingering stares lead to bloody noses in some cases and extreme violence in others. Bill, for instance, burns his house down. With his family locked inside.

When a downed jet and a dead military pilot turn up at the local lake, it doesn't take much for David to piece together what's happened: A terrible toxin has contaminated his town's water supply. 

David jumps into action, shutting off Ogden Marsh's water. But it's too late. The once-good citizens have begun to lose their minds, working up a foul fondness for certain pointy farm tools along the way. 

The ever-vigilant military, always alert for mishaps like these, promptly shows up to take control and separate the populace into two camps: healthy and unhealthy. 

David goes to the healthy camp ... and Judy doesn't.

It's no secret that the horror genre has often served as an incubator for political- and social-commentary subtexts. Back in 1973, for example, it didn't take much imagination to see that George Romero's original version of The Crazies was aimed squarely at the Vietnam War angst of the day. The military opening fire on civilians, for example, was an image that was still painfully fresh just a couple years after the Kent State shootings in 1970. 

This time around, you don't have to worry much about missing the movie's intended message. The creators of the newly minted version are more than happy to do all the interpretation for you: The toxin that poisons the town's water supply is described by a government agent as a chemical weapon designed to disrupt an enemy's living environment. 

The filmmakers' message about chemicals and the environment, then, is anything but subtle. In fact, they'd like to sign you up for social action as you leave the theater.

The movie's production house, Participant Media (best known for its global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth), has determined it will only make "socially progressive cinema." To help accomplish that goal this time around, Participant has partnered with more than 50 environmental groups for the purpose of encouraging those who see The Crazies to engage in some boots-on-the-ground action. Greenpeace volunteers at the screening I attended, for instance, were handing out petitions advocating the passage of a chemical-security act.

"Everything with Participant has to be socially relevant right down to its DNA," said Participant Media president Ricky Strauss in a New York Times review. He went on to say, though, that sometimes you have to "hide the medicine in the popcorn."

That said, I'm not sure how effective the "medicine" he's talking about will be with horror film fans. Most of those in my screening audience didn't seem visibly impressed by the activist call to arms. No, I think they were mostly there to witness the titular crazies in action. 

And on that score, director Breck Eisner's remake probably didn't disappoint them. It's a tense, tightly paced scarefest that has almost as many jump scenes as f-bombs. And trust me, there's enough toxic language here to burn the ears off anyone crazy enough to go sit through it. But that's only the tip of this disturbing cinematic iceberg.

"We're not shying away from blood," Eisner opined in an interview with bloodydisgusting.com. "It's horrific and graphic." 

He's not exaggerating. This is a hurtling ride full of bullets to the head, spewing blood and oozing intestinal gush. Oh, and pitchforks being employed in exceedingly unfarmlike ways. 

As for Participant Media, Greenpeace and all the other environment groups who've signed on to promote their cause via this violent vision of chemical-crazed humanity, I can't help but wonder what kind of return they're likely to get on their investment. Not once did the film compel me to consider protesting clean water standards. 

Mostly it just made me want to take a shower.