Snap Judgements: The Crazies; The White Ribbon

The Crazies

Let me get this off my chest now. The Crazies was not a bad film. It's a perfectly acceptable thriller with a few truly eerie moments and horrifying flashes of gore. But that's not hard to achieve. I just expected more, given the cast and my newfound love of the zombie genre. I guess you could call these people zombies. They might just be bored from living in an eyeblink of a small town all their lives. Certainly drives me bonkers whenever I step foot in one. When the Super Wal-Mart is the town highlight, there's an issue.

Timothy Olyphant(Go, A Perfect Getaway) stars as Sheriff David Dutton. Being the sheriff of one of these places is only cool if you're Andy Griffith and you have a bumbling sidekick to take lumps for you. Dutton makes the best of it, though. His wife, Judy(Radha Mitchell), is the town doctor. All's quiet as normal until out of the blue, the town drunk walks out onto the baseball field during a game with a shotgun in his hands. After a violent confrontation, hopefully all is well. But mysterious things continue to happen without explanation. Murders, arson, and a disturbing quiet has taken over the town. It isn't long before the military swoops in and begins kicking ass and taking names, but by then it's too late. The populace has mostly been transformed into vicious, murderous zombie-like creatures.

Director Breck Eisner(son of former Disney exec, Michel Eisner) knows how to elicit tension from seemingly innocuous moments. A lone thresher running on idle in the black of night is a perfect example. Even I got the willies waiting to see what would pop out from behind it, or if someone would end up thrown into it. Unfortunately, there aren't nearly enough of these scenes for me to latch on to. The gore is another story, though. This is one brutal film. The blood flies quick and often, but loses it's impact after awhile. Unfortunately not enough was done with any of the characters to make me care. The film simply loses momentum as the mystery, which isn't much of a mystery at all, unravels. A shame, because Olyphant and Mitchell do their best with limited material, and Eisner has a much better grasp on directing than he did when he made Sahara back in 2005. The Crazies will scare you for awhile, but by the end you'll be bored and ready for them to wipe the town off the map. 5/10

The White Ribbon

Much like The Crazies, the fictitious protestant town of Eichwald, Germany is in the grips of a mystery. The town doctor(what's with the small town doctor abuse, lately?) is injured when someone leaves a tripwire near his house, forcing him to fall off his horse. This type of thing doesn't happen here. It's a quiet town, where nearly everyone works together for the local Baron, farming to sustain eachother through the hard winter months. Nobody knows who did it, but the local kids are immediately suspects. Then, more incidents. A mentally challenged boy is beaten mercilessly. A house is set on fire. What the hell is going on?

Michael Haneke is no stranger to ambiguous morality tales. This is the same man who brought us the violent Funny Games back in 2008, and the perplexing mystery, Cache in 2005. Both films in their own way dealt with violence, or at least the threat of it. Here, The White Ribbon shows how violence can transform an entire culture, inspiring fear and hatred that threatens the ruination of all. Watching it, it's hard not to imagine this as the origin of the same fear and anger that inspired the Nazis rise to power, but knowing Haneke I'm sure his intentions were far greater than that.

At it's core, The White Ribbon is pure psychological horror, and a far more terrifying one than The Crazies could ever hope to be. The wanton cruelty displayed here isn't far enough removed from reality that I can't imagine it taking place somewhere, probably during that same time period. There are no name faces here. The kids are mostly non-actors, but Haneke yanks the best performances he can from them. The acting is never an issue. The story can move a bit slowly, but if you're as wrapped up into the mystery as I was you'll never notice it. Every single line in this film matters, and is a potential clue. Some will take issue with the black and white color scheme, but it's perfect for such an enigmatic morality tale. 7/10