Editorials
Why ‘The Crazies’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead’ Make for a Perfect Horror Remake Double Feature
According to some, remakes do untold damage to childhoods the world over, leaving nothing but tears, regrets, and crumpled up memories in their wake. Obviously, the idea of redoing a beloved movie is a touchy subject for film fans as the results are sometimes less than stellar. In some cases, they’re not even adequate. But horror remakes fair a little better. Specifically, ones with a creative team with something on their mind or a singular perspective.
Every week in October, I’m suggesting a double feature of remakes for your Halloween viewing pleasures. The movies are connected and never random, even if the connection is not-so-obvious at first sight. Besides the fact we’re all dying for horror to watch during the spooky season, double features are great introductions to movies for the uninitiated. And for seasoned vets, watching two movies back-to-back can sometimes put them in a different light.
So, without further ado, let’s get to the picks.
What Are the Movies?
Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead and Breck Eisner’s The Crazies provide two different angles on George Romero’s material. The pace is different, the look is different, the reverence to Romero is different, and they’re both products of their respective decades. Don’t get it confused; these movies have their similarities as well. Chief among them the fact they’re both dope movies in their own right and stand as two of the best remakes of all-time, horror or otherwise.
Dawn of the Dead is quintessential early 2000s horror. The movie is fast, gory, a tad over the top, and about as subtle as a Puff Daddy music video. James Gunn’s script is less concerned with commenting on the downfall of society through consumerism, and more focused on grabbing its audience by the neck for an hour and 40-minute rollercoaster without a single barf bag within reach. The first fifteen minutes could stand on its own as a short film and is possibly the strongest opening of any horror flick that decade. While Romero’s Dawn of the Dead initially focused on zombie attacks in the city, the remake’s opening shows us what happens when all hell breaks loose in the suburbs. From the opening attack, Snyder tells us his zombies are fast, athletic, and somehow a bit cunning. They sometimes lull their victims into a false sense of security before attacking. The zombies plot, plan, and are, at times, surprisingly patient. Even if the movie they’re in is sometimes the exact opposite.
Romero’s original showed man as the true monster. Snyder’s remake, on the other hand, makes it abundantly clear the monsters are the true monsters.
The Crazies hit in 2010, the same year as Insidious, Paranormal Activity 2, and Frozen. Saw was on its way out as horror flicks became more interested in suspense and tension instead of shock and awe. With that in mind, it’s easy to see why Breck Eisner’s remake is similar in tone to the 1973 original. The scares are spaced out for maximum effect, dread lords over the entire proceedings, and the relationships have shades of complexity. Unlike the original, which boasts an abundance of central characters, Eisner’s film is a story of four people making their way through a manmade hell. Tightening the scope of the movie allows for deeper characterizations, providing the audience reason to truly give a damn when one of them is at risk of being dearly departed.
The Crazies get back to Romero’s idea that humans are the awful things that go bump in the night. Rather than zombies, our heroes are dealing with an outbreak and the government cover-up that follows. Sure, the townspeople get infected and go a tad psycho, resulting in a couple choice set-pieces, but who we should really fear is never in question.
Okay, Why These Two?
Besides the obvious Romero connection? Both films have “end of the world as we know it” vibes, and show the good and not-so-good ways humans react in a crisis while placing a spotlight on an extended family doing their best to survive. Dawn of the Dead and The Crazies have at least one moment each where the audience is asked to empathize with specific choices the characters make. Which leads them to question what they would do in a similar circumstance.
Romero had his own voice, and these two directors do as well. Dawn of the Dead introduced us to Zack Snyder, and while his style evolved over the years, the foundation he laid in 2004 is still there today. Breck Eisner was very close to giving us another shot of his brand of horror with a sequel to 2009’s Friday the 13th but the movie business has a way of spoiling everyone’s fun.
These two movies are respectful to the source material without being slavish. Dawn of the Dead is a good chaser to the shot of the original. The Crazies improves on what came before and makes it relevant to the decade of horror it started and our current moment in time.
Watch The Crazies first to get you in the right mood, and follow it with Dawn of the Dead to cap the night with a little enjoyment. The Crazies is streaming for free on Tubi and is available to rent on most streaming platforms. Dawn of the Dead is streaming on Peacock and is also available to rent on most streaming platforms.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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