The Crazies (2010)

The 2010 remake of "The Crazies" is a more enjoyable and creepier version than the original. There are several reasons why this movie is an overall stronger film and the main reason is because this version focuses solely on a group of survivors who are trying to escape the town; trying to follow both the residents and the military broke the tension too much, having to keep track of several characters rather than a small handful. The talent of the actors is higher, the budget is heftier, and the suspense and pacing are kept tight. This version also shows the survivors having to defend themselves from their "crazy" neighbors who only want to kill.

David is the local sheriff of the small town of Ogden, Iowa. During a local baseball game, a local resident comes stumbling into the field with a shotgun in his hands. David asks then orders the man to drop his gun and is forced to kill him when the man raises the weapon at him. This is the first of many such occurrences that David and his deputy Russell begin to notice happening around town. The two soon find a military aircraft that had crashed in a nearby swamp, and that it's payload has been introduced to the town's drinking water, contaminating it. Within hours of the discovery the military happen to show up and place the town under martial law and take all of the residents into quarantine at the high school. The camp is overrun with "crazies" and David and his wife Judy escape with the help of Russel and a teen named Becca. They spend the rest of the night trying to hide form both the military who are now shooting anyone who might look infected on sight as well as trying to survive the onslaught of assaults from their former neighbors.

Friday the 13th (2009)

“Friday the 13^th” was meant to be a reboot of the series and not a remake of the original film. This allowed them to take elements from the first four films and apply them in a single movie. The writers and director wanted to reexamine, update, and adjust various aspects of Jason’s mythos which left me thinking that their efforts were both cool and pretty lame at the same time. The film opens up with the events that occur at the very ending of the original “Friday the 13^th” with the showdown between a counselor and Jason’s mom; she’s still beheaded and Jason is still a witness to the gruesome act. The movie moves forward in time to when Jason is grown and begins killing people while wearing a cloth mask like the one he had in “Friday the 13^th part 2”. Jason finds a hockey masks and puts in on and some teenagers find the head of Jason’s mom, just like the events in “Friday the 13^th part 3”. Finally, a guy shows up looking for his missing sister (Friday the 13^th part 4”) and a lot more people get killed before they realize what’s going on. These were cool nods to the first few films in the series when the movies were still building a mythos and keeping to a serious horror movie vibe.

The only thing I really didn’t like about this film was seeing where Jason lived; a creepy, wet, room/tunnels of torture. The fact that he had an area to lock somebody up is not like his character at all and it really bothered me. The only time we saw a house where Jason might have lived in the original movies was a tiny hut that was set up as a shrine to his mother. That was cool and this was not. It feels like it’s too similar to all of the other hideaways that deranged movie killers have. It’s just a part of the story that I wish they had skipped.

The Ward (2010)

I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining "The Ward" was. It's not a great film by any means and I was completely uninterested in it for the first 20 minutes or so but luckily it picks up and kept me curious until the end. The cast includes Jared Harris (Resident Evil: Apocalypse) and Danielle Panabaker (Friday the 13th, The Crazies).

Kristen is taken to a mental ward after she is caught burning down a barn. She doesn't remember why or even doing it. At the ward she meets for other girls who really don't seem like they belong in a mental institution. Kristen also begins to see a ghost. No one believes her until this ghost begins to kill of the other girls one by one. Will Kristen be able to save any of them...or herself?

SPOILERS AHEAD

Favorite moment - I really enjoyed the reveal at the end if the movie. It explains why the girls acted like they did, meaning that they didn't have to necessarily be crazy or seem that way. The movie feels a lot a like "Identity" because it used the multiple personality twist.