Crazies

If at first you don't succeed, try a remake. That is a lesson Breck Eisner seems to have learned, maybe from Disney's ex-chief, Michael Eisner, his father. With that big career advantage to start with, Breck went to a film school, did well with TV commercials and directed a low-budget movie that went straight to video (Thoughtcrimes, 2003). He then directed Sahara (2005), "one of the biggest financial failures in Hollywood history".

Five years later, he's redeemed himself by directing the remake of The Crazies, a horror movie created in 1973 by George Romero (who co-executive-produced the remake). Having earned a reasonable box-office return (US$38 million), Eisner's now working on remakes of Flash Gordon and Escape from New York.

The Crazies had a standard scenario: chemical disaster afflicts small rural community, ugly zombies wield gory havoc, government sends in the troops, and the local sheriff and his deputy and their female interests must escape before the area is nuked. Much depends on the audience rooting for the sheriff, ably played by Timothy Deadwood Olyphant.

He's got twinkling eyes, and his sidekick's given the cool quizzical style of English actor Joe Copying Beethoven Anderson. A very busy Australian actress, Radha Mitchell, filled the international billing requirements as the sheriff's wife.

There is some attractive cinematography from a young master of the genre, Belgian-born Maxime The Hills Have Eyes Alexandre, and the producers wisely employed multi-Emmy nominee Billy Fox for the film editing. Putting more budget funds where they can really pay off, they added an Oscar nominee and Emmy-winning veteran composer on the team (Mark Isham), a top designer (Anglo-US award-winner Andrew Syriana Menzies) and art director awardee (Greg Memoirs of a Geisha Berry).

For sure there are other talents further down the credits list, and they're probably part of another lesson or three Breck was given by Hollywood pals: hire top technicians and you can make a B picture that looks great, and makes you look pretty good too.