The Crazies (2010) - Fear Thy Neighbor. Terror can't be contained.

Danielle Panabaker as: Becca Darling
Other Cast: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson
Film Status: Now Playing!
Release Date: February 26, 2010 (US)
Directed by: Breck Eisner
Writers: Scott Kosar, George A. Romero
Genre: Horror, Action, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Production & Distribution: Overture Films
Filming Locations: Cordele, Macon, Perry (Georgia, USA); Iowa, USA

Imagine living in a small town where everything is safe and happy... until suddenly it isn't. Imagine your friends and neighbors going quickly and horrifically insane. In a terrifying tale of the "American Dream" gone horribly wrong, four friends find themselves trapped in their hometown in "The Crazies," a reinvention of the George Romero classic directed by Breck Eisner from a screenplay by Ray Wright and Scott Kosar.

David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) is sheriff of Ogden Marsh, a picture-perfect American town with happy, law-abiding citizens. But one night, one of them comes to a school baseball game with a loaded shotgun, ready to kill. Another man burns down his own house…after locking his wife and young son in a closet inside. Within days, the town has transformed into a sickening asylum; people who days ago lived quiet, unremarkable lives have now become depraved, blood-thirsty killers, hiding in the darkness with guns and knives. Sheriff Dutton tries to make sense of what's happening as the horrific, nonsensical violence escalates. Something is infecting the citizens of Ogden Marsh... with insanity. Now complete anarchy reigns as one by one the townsfolk succumb to an unknown toxin and turn sadistically violent. In an effort to keep the madness contained, the government uses deadly force to close off all access and won't let anyone in or out – even those uninfected. The few still sane find themselves trapped: Sheriff Dutton; his pregnant wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell); Becca (Danielle Panabaker), an assistant at the medical center; and Russell (Joe Anderson), Dutton's deputy and right-hand man. Forced to band together, an ordinary night becomes a horrifying struggle for survival as they do their best to get out of town alive.

- Remake of The Crazies (1973).

- While shooting a scene in a carwash, Danielle Panabaker accidentally got hit in the face by a rifle.

- Filming took place from March, 4th to May 9th, 2009.

Becca: This is really happening...
Judy: It's gonna be alright, we're gonna be ok.
Becca: You don't really believe that, do you?

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Unknown: huh.
Becca: [shouting] I don't want to die like this!

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Becca: [From trailer #1] We gotta get out of here guys!

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Becca: [From TV spot #2] [crying] Just go away, please...

"I love that it starts moving right away. There's no secrets about what's going on. Something's wrong in this town and it just goes which I like."
- Danielle Panabaker

"I haven't seen the original. I've read the description on IMDB. I need to see it. That's my homework for the weekend. But the character is sort of there, so it's four instead of five in this one, but it's good. I think there's a lot between my character and Radha's character is really interesting just in terms of like a surrogate mother-daughter relationship that I really like and I love working with Radha. I think she's really talented."
- Danielle Panabaker

"You don't meet my parents in the film. My character Becca works for Radha Mitchell's character at her doctor's office and they have a really good rapport. Radha's character teases Becca about all of her extracurricular activities as she hangs out with boys. She's involved in her life which is cool."
- Danielle Panabaker

"It was intense to shoot, I mean, we certainly went all the way. So I think it will be really great. I'm excited. It's a whole long sequence. We pull into the carwash to hide from the helicopters and things go very awry. The carwash is moving, people get wet, everyone gets soaked actually."
- Danielle Panabaker

"I'd love to be a scream queen. I think it's fun. I think you get to go so many places with something like this and there's so many different notes that my character, as an actor, gets to hit because you see her before everything starts going wrong in the town and she's very innocent, fun, and young. And then there's a really dark journey that my character gets to take that you don't necessarily get to take in just a romantic comedy. Pretty dark places. It's fun for me. I don't know why, but maybe I have a very warped reality, but I'm really happy to be here. I was really excited to work with Breck too. I think he has a lot to say and as sort of a newish director I'm anxious to see where his career goes and what he does."
- Danielle Panabaker

"They're pretty hardcore (Danielle's scenes). Yeah, we're scared. Adrenaline is running. It's funny, we were rehearsing a scene in the carwash last week and no one's around. It was just the four actors and Breck watching and we're rehearsing and we're really, even in rehearsal, just totally committed and the scene was just going and going and then Breck looks at Joe and goes, "Joe are you okay?" And Joe's like, "I was just acting." So we're there. It's intense. I feel like, especially after all the stuff in the carwash just because that's fresh on my mind, there were definitely takes where my heart was still beating afterward and it's scary."
- Danielle Panabaker

"This feels like a disease, like an infectious disease and there's something blood-curdling about it. And to see the actors in full make-up is grotesque in a way. I'm fascinated by it all. They have their own trailer for effects makeup and we actors aren't really allowed in there, but it's cool to see what's going on in there, we can go take a peek."
- Danielle Panabaker

"We were shooting a scene in a barn and I got my arm hurt and last week I accidentally got hit in the mouth with a rifle. I'm totally accident prone, it's unfortunate, it's Murphy's Law. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen to me... I wonder if it'll ever be in the bloopers because you see us turning around and the rifle accidentally hits me in the face and then you see everyone turn back around and I've got my hands on my face. So, we definitely did not stay in the moment. The good news was my lip wasn't split and it was just, onward... "
- Danielle Panabaker

"With something like this, I think the unknown aspect of what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, how it's going to affect you. They've really thought through what this infection means and what becoming crazy means."
- Danielle Panabaker

"There's a great moment in this film, one of my favorites for me as an actor, is the scene where my character, after understanding that everyone's become infected and my character's already been through a really traumatic experience. She meets up with her boyfriend, but there's this moment of this person who you love and trust and have all this history with, like, "Oh my God, what's going to happen?" You don't know and I think that's really scary. Also, the word paranoia stuck with me. The idea that these people, not knowing, I think it goes back probably to a big fear of the unknown and not knowing how that affects people and changes them, you know, you think about a mother being protective over her child, take that to an Nth degree. So the paranoia's pretty scary too. It's all scary."
- Danielle Panabaker

" think it's a commentary on social responsibility. Its great having all this technology and all this information, but with that information comes responsibility to be conscious and protective and not disregard the value and I think ultimately how fragile life can be. I know that sounds sort of cliché and cheesy, but with something like this, if something got into the water, and that's the scary part, how quickly it would expand? What's so cool about this disease is how perverse it makes everyone. The school principal who works with the kids and whatever, when he goes crazy, he is trying to kill the kids. That's what's fascinating to me about this disease is like, what it brings out of these people."
- Danielle Panabaker

I was finally able to go see The Crazies last night, the official release date here was April 30th, but my blockbuster-lover city didn’t get the film until six weeks later. Considering it’s playing in 53 screens right now, I’d say the distribution’s not all that bad for a horror film (A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s playing in 86) But the marketing strategy was close to non-existent, except for a Facebook page with 1,300 likes and a TV spot with the wrong release date I was lucky enough to see.

Now onto the film, the movie is about a small town in Iowa that gets infected with a disease that makes everyone in the town go crazy, killer crazy. David Dutten (Timothy Olyphant), the town’s sheriff, tries to escape with her pregnant wife Judy (Radha Mitchell), deputy and right hand Russell (Joe Anderson) and Becca (Danielle Panabaker), Judy’s assistant at the medical clinic.

From the beginning of the movie you can tell there’s something wrong in the town, one of the very first scenes features Danielle Panabaker, which is great. But about five minutes later we get the first dark incident, it unleashes a series of horrific (and sometimes very exciting) situations that don’t stop until the end. There’s a creepy claustrophobic vibe during the entire film, and most of the time you find yourself seating at the edge of your seat just to end up getting a jump scare. That’s really how the whole film works, which is great because it keeps you interested, but it gets so common that you just know it’s going to happen again.

The film is pretty quiet; in fact there is not much dialog, which sometimes makes you the feel everything’s moving slowly. This would usually be considered strange, but it works this time because the movie is built out of atmosphere (very good soundtrack), emotions and actions.

What’s great about the film is that you feel the characters are trapped, on one side we have the crazies, and on the other we have the army in charge of containing the infection. Both sides are ready to kill every living person in town, and this makes you feel the main characters are hopeless at times. There are some hardcore scenes involving both menaces. The crazies make they’re most chilling appearances in two particular scenes: one involving a pitchfork and strapped Judy and Becca, the other one is a car wash with a much unexpected outcome.

The main characters are well developed (not completely though), and the acting is very convincing. But one of the problems is you don’t get to actually care about the small town and its people before it all starts falling apart, which prevents you from feeling sorry for whatever happens to them.

The Crazies is not a perfect film; it has its ups and downs. But overall it’s an exciting, full of suspense experience. It is definitely not a waste of time, but a perfect alternative to the average blockbuster. It is strange to find a good horror film these days; The Crazies is a very good one.

About Danielle Panabaker’s performance (SPOILERS):

It is always a pleasure to see Danielle on screen. Unfortunately this film doesn’t make her shine, not because of a lack of acting skills, but because of the lack of time to show them. Her character is rather small and has very few lines; she seems to be on the background most of the time, I actually could not believe how underused she was. But overall she did the best with what she had. Her emotions are believable, she’s the sweet and scared teen trapped in the middle of a situation she can’t really understand.

Her final scene is one of the most exciting ones in the film. Saddly her death was half-spoiled in the trailer, but even if you knew it was going to happen, the way it happened made it feel unexpected; I just dropped my mouth and could not believe that was it for Becca. I felt we never really got to know her, but it was still sad to see her lying on the floor, especially after her final line was: “I don’t wanna die like this!”

01. PHOTOS: Movie Stills, Posters, DVD Captures & more of Danielle Panabaker as Becca Darling.

02. VIDEOS: Clips, Trailers, Interviews & more of Danielle Panabaker as Becca Darling.

03. OFFICIAL: Visit the official website for The Crazies (2010).

04. OGDEN MARSH: Visit the official website for Ogden Marsh (Town in the movie).

05. TWITTER: Visit the official Twitter for The Crazies (2010).

06. FACEBOOK: Visit the official Facebook page for The Crazies (2010).