Making zombie movies with no zombies in them is hard, especially since they're so huge right now.  This version of "The Crazies" started out pretty well at this track, as initially the crazies were less flesh eating monsters, more serial killer.  The slow creeping horror implied in the fact that your husband of twenty years would all of a sudden slowly and  methodically trap you in a closet and set your house on fire is pretty chilling. Then the concept that the difference between the crazies and how people might act crazy if your town goes under marshal law and your friends and family are being shot down around you isn’t that different.

The movie does this well by almost never showing any of the troops’ faces, all of them being covered head to toe in gas-masks and camo gear. However, as great as any of these three points might have been when they were initially introduced, they all fizzle away into some sort of bland zombie road trip movie.  The majority of this much too long movie is (or feels like it is) spent driving or walking from point A to B with the occasional generic zombie fight scene thrown in.  Even something with the potential for originality like a car wash zombie attack degenerates into random jump suited monsters roaring and breaking the windows.

It is sad that a movie with seemingly a few different stories to tell told none of them, and instead was just generic, a beige-with-the-occasional-blood-splatter tale.