With another week comes yet another remake of a horror film, though George. A Romero’s obscure 1973 pic The Crazies is barely-known enough to even be regarded as “cult” cinema, and so, given the original film’s miniscule budget, and no fanbase of rabid diehards in sight to annoy, perhaps this is the sort of film we should be remaking. However, for its decent cast and picturesque direction, this is a surprisingly bland, snoozy little film.

After the briefest of glimpses at a town blanketed by fire and destruction, we cut to two days previous; the town is Ogden Marsh, a tiny farming town in Iowa, where nobody is in a hurry to do anything, and everyone knows everyone else. The protagonists are Sherriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his wife, Dr. Judy Dutton (Radha Mitchell), who have a kid on the way and are respected pillars of the community. However, when the town drunk, Rory, shows up to a baseball game with a shotgun, a quick-thinking David shoots him dead. However, this isn’t an isolated case, and an increasing number of residents are turning manically violent, causing it to soon enough become clear that something has gone horribly wrong in this sleepy town. Furthermore, the government are on their way to contain the madness by any means necessary.

Before the source of the mania is revealed at the height of the first act, the film aptly deals with the psychological torment of taking another’s life through Olyphant’s guilt-stricken character. Given how low the value of life generally is in a horror film, this is rather refreshing, yet with its predictable jump scares and unintentionally hilarious moments (such as a “crazy” woman riding around on a bicycle), this is not the horror remake that it could have been. Despite capturing the general bemusement of the situation well, it is at the expense of pace and excitement, making this an intriguing, if oddly unsatisfying outing.

Once the army shows up, things do get a touch more interesting, yet it still follows along a precedent set and perfected in better films, such as Cloverfield and District 9. There are some arresting sights – such as a truck full of armed civilians attacking the military stronghold, only to be efficiently gunned down, and a minor character being shot and burned at a moment’s notice – but there’s little that hasn’t been done better elsewhere, and while competently made, there’s just not much to get the pulse racing.

Though it paints the G-Men firmly as the villains, there is a little more moral tension to proceedings than you might expect, and for much of the film, it is easy to sympathise with the soldiers, who are simply following orders, and doing what they’re told in order to survive. The brief glimpses we get at them put a more human, friendly face on some necessary atrocities, and it certainly enhances the film’s thinly-veilled Iraq war allegory, that both sides of the equation are just scared people trying to survive.

Indeed, there are some nice ideas here – the military, when flying in their helicopters, are like oppressive spectres, and the film’s take on the slow-working nature of the infection is something a bit different – but nothing’s especially developed, and the connection between the two leads is what feels especially lacking. Our characters are put through the wringer, for sure, but for the most part it’s in rudimentary ways, and though director Breck Eisner conjures up plenty of gorgeous images (particularly in the final few minutes), it’s not really enough to make The Crazies worth recommending.

There’s at least one great kill, a requisite cameo by 24’s Glenn Morshower as a military grunt, and some eerie imagery, but Eisner also rattles through the clichés like a shopping list, with the “bad guy raises weapon slowly to sustain tension, before being shot at the last second” scene just being a tad too insulting. Though well shot and certainly well acted (particularly with regard to Joe Anderson, who, as the Deputy character, may become a breakout star), there’s the distinct feeling that more could have been done to differentiate this middling horror flick from its contemporaries. Lacking the visceral excitement and pace to satisfy casual audiences, and the pathos for more discerning viewers, this is a competently made, if uninvolving horror flick.