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.

When Cliff (Steve Zahn) calms his wife’s fear of the beach hike ahead by saying, “Nothing bad ever happens in Hawaii,” you know A Perfect Getaway is going to a pretty cheap trip. It’s doubtful one expects a genre-bending slick, sophisticated thriller considering the late-summer timing and Resident Evil mainstay Milla Jovovich at the helm, but you’d at least hope for something less eye-rolling and anticipated. Getaway is more of a roller-coaster afternoon at Busch Gardens on a hot humid day than a picturesque Hawaiian vacation. Director David Twohy wants to keep audiences guessing with blunt, repetitive misdirection. Instead, his jerky style just comes off as conspicuous and trying. Ultimately, you just have to sit back with full awareness of the lurching ahead and the expectation that the ride will be over in short time.