The Crazies, a remake of George Romero’s 1973 horror film of the same name, is set to open February 26. The film’s website describes it as follows:

A husband and wife in a small Midwestern town find themselves battling for survival as their friends and family descend into madness in The Crazies. A mysterious toxin in the water supply turns everyone exposed to it into mindless killers and the authorities leave the uninfected to their certain doom in this terrifying reinvention of the George Romero horror classic.

Directed by Breck Eisner (Sahara), The Crazies is written by Ray Wright (Pulse, Case 39) and Scott Kosar (The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). The American Dream goes horribly wrong when the residents of this picture-perfect town begin to succumb to an uncontrollable urge for violence and the horrific bloodshed escalates into anarchy. In an attempt to contain the epidemic, the military uses deadly force to close off access into or out of town, abandoning the few healthy citizens to the growing mayhem as depraved killers lurk in the shadows.

Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant); his pregnant wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell); Becca (Danielle Panabaker), an assistant at the medical center; and Russell (Joe Anderson), Dutton’s deputy and right-hand man, find themselves trapped in a once idyllic town they can no longer recognize. Unable to trust former neighbors and friends, deserted by the authorities and terrified of contracting the illness themselves, they are forced to band together in a nightmarish struggle for survival.

In light of last week’s event in Austin, Texas where a man burned his house down and then flew his small plane into an IRS building I’d suggest that the backdrop for this film has greater credibility, and does not need to draw upon toxins as an explanatory device. The economic recession, commitments to extreme ideologies, and mental instability seem to be sufficient to create isolated instances of the Crazies. Let’s hope the condition doesn’t spread.