Why is The Crazies remake so awesome?

I didn't expect much from this one. I'm pretty burned out on remakes. They just keep coming and coming like an ever-growing horde of decaying zombies with more and more limbs missing so I was extremely surprised to find The Crazies worth watching. In fact, I loved it. For starters, the pacing is brutal. They don't drag shit out. Forget showing the ordinary world for 30 minutes. They turn that upside down 3 minutes in. Not only that but they establish likable characters, give you an authentic small town feeling, and hint that a lot of bad shit is going to happen. I haven't really liked Timothy Olyphant in the other films I've seen him in (although I don't think that is any fault of his own... an actor can only do so much with poor writing), but here he fits perfectly and his performance is great. Plus, you've got a fantastic supporting cast with Joe Anderson (I don't know him from anything else, but he's outstanding), Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill), Danielle Panabaker, Glenn Morshower (24!), etc. Even the guy playing a psycho husband (Brett Rickaby and he actually has a lot of credits) is outstanding. The makeup and FX are phenomenal. Same with the sound design, and you get tension throughout. I like how they flesh out the military a little as well. The movie also has a lot of replay value. I've actually seen it quite a few times, and I still enjoy it.

The only nitpicking you could do (and I guess it's valid for an infection movie) concerns how people get sick, because in one scene, the sheriff clearly gets diseased blood in a wound yet his wife who is a doctor doesn't seem to care, and it apparently has no effect on him (or maybe it does but we don't see it in the film's short time span). But hell, everything else is so good, I don't care. This film doesn't play nice either. It'll kill characters you care about in a heartbeat, and I love the three homicidal hunters. I was kinda shocked the director of this made Sahara. I don't remember anything about that movie except wondering why I wasted my time watching it, but The Crazies is superb. Dark and bloody with characters you root for.