In the small town of Ogden Marsh, Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) doesn’t have much to do. The citizens are quiet and peaceful and it’s basically your picture perfect town. Till one day at a school baseball game one of the citizens comes through the middle of the game with a shot gun. When David tells him to drop the weapon and he instead points it at him, David has no choice but to shoot and kill the resident. David believes that the suspect was drunk, till another resident sets their house on fire after locking his wife and child in the closet. As David and his Deputy, Russell (Joe Anderson) try to figure out what’s going on, they start to come across more and more residents acting strange and bewildered.
Soon the town is overrun by government officials, and army personal who start to gather the town people up. The town seems to be getting quarantined and no one is saying why. They are not letting anyone in or out of the town, and soon start to kill people weather they are acting strange or not. David, his wife Judy (Radha Mitchell) and his deputy Russell, escape the confines of the government only to find that it’s not going to be easy to leave the town. Its complete mayhem and no one can be trusted.
This movie is a remake of the 1973 version, by the same name, that was directed by George A. Romero. Although I have not seen the original, I do know that the basis of the story stayed the same. I felt this movie was not what I expected. I thought it was going to turn into a zombie movie, but that never transpired. Basically these people just lose control of their minds, and become very violent. Most of the scenes from the trailer start off the first half of the movie. Then when you think it’s about to get really good and scary, the movie changes and turns into a battle for survival for our main cast members. It never got too gory, and the violence was very mild. I was highly disappointed at the end of seeing this movie and I felt like it could have been so much more. This could have basically been an American version of “28 Days Laterâ€, but it wasn’t. I mean the premise was there, virus infects civilization causing insanity amongst its residents. That was the same premise in “28 daysâ€, but that movie was so much more zombie-like. These people got infected and grabbed weapons to do their killings. Then there was something I noticed that was kind of stupid in the script. When these people went insane, they would even kill other people who were infected, but yet there was one group of three men who didn’t turn on each other. The movie had a couple of other parts that didn’t make sense, but I’m not going to get into all of that. I will say that I am only giving this movie 1 ½ stars out of 4. I have to rent the original version to see how George A. Romero’s direction stacks up to this remake. The movie runs 1hour and 41mins. It was rated R for bloody violence and language. It was written by Scott Kosar and Ray Wright. It was directed by Breck Eisner. It was produced by Georgaris, Inc. It was distributed by Overture Films.
“If your neighbors start to act strange, move away from them”- Ezo
Next Review: TBD
