How exactly would a crowd react if a regular Joe wandered onto the field of a youth baseball game with a shotgun in tow and a blank stare leading his way? Director Breck Eisner handles this scenario and many other “not right” elements of The Crazies with surprising dexterity and evenness. While not a one-to-one remake of George Romero’s 1973 original, Eisner’s Crazies quietly tears at your sense of domestic security and calm with all the precision and destructiveness of a rusty scalpel. Call it a spontaneous outbreak of talent and inspiration. You wouldn’t expect the director of Sahara and writers of recent lame remakes (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Amityville Horror) to create a warmed-over scare that actually scares. Don’t let the bad rep for horror remakes keep you from checking out The Crazies this weekend.

Ooo buddy, this is an intense one. While the underlying themes aren’t anything new, director Breck Eisner (of ugh…Sahara) seems to cooked up The Crazies with a pretty dark recipe.

Scientific tales that take the thinnest threads of theories and stretch them to exotic ends can be a lot of fun. The Matrix taught us our world may not be as real as we think. Terminator warns of the dangers in advancing robotic technology. And Surrogates suggests that living life by mechanical-proxy may be a better way to go. Some of these stories are thorough and game-changing, and others like Surrogates, are just skin-deep. The Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3)-directed film, however, does get a knod for supporting the idea that people truly are ugly on the inside.