This is a remake of a lesser know (aka non-zombie) George Romero movie from 1973.
The story: . The people of Ogden Marsh -- a frienly small town where everyone knows everyone -- are becoming violent. It starts at a high school baseball game when a local man, Rory Hamill, shows up with a shotgun. The shariff (played by Tim Olyphant -- I can't believe that's a real person's name!) tries to talk to him, but the man is unresponsive and finally raises the shotgun, forcing the shariff to shoot him in from of the entire town. And it spreads. Another local man burns his family in their farm house. Then the shariff, investigating a dead soldier that is found, finds a downed plane that is leaking toxins into the water supply, causing everyone to go crazy. The army shows up and starts evacuating the town, testing people first. People with the infection are killed. Others are rounded up. The shariff's wife is marked infected and now he has to save her and go on the run with his wife and a few others, trying to find a way past the army who will kill them if they find them as a precaution while avoiding the infected who will just kill them, even as they wonder if they have become infected themselves.
So was it good?
It was good. Not great, but good. First, it isn't really a horror movie. It's more of an action movie, but with zombies. Horro is creepy; it gets under your skin. Except for the first scene at the baseball field, there isn't that much creepy going on. It's more go-go-go with bursts of small contained action scenes of people vs zombies or people vs army. As a fun action movie it's okay -- it's basically a B-movie made with a decent budget and good actors -- but it's a pretty empty experience. Like all the other remakes I've been seeing, what they basically did was strip away any social commentary, any deeper storytelling, anything that might be really disturbing, and just make it a superficial popcorn flick.
*** SLIGHT RECOMMEND (as a popcorn film) ***
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