Talkie Zoo: THE CRAZIES

Scary and plenty of jump scenes, The Crazies (2010; R) has everything you'd want in a horror flick - blood, bad language, excellent characters, and a story line. I'm not the biggest fan of horror films, but I really liked this one. The thrust of the movie wasn't the blood and gore, but the people of the small town and their response to a virus gone wild in their midst.

It begins with telling a story about ordinary people in an ordinary midwestern town, going about their ordinary business. One person loses his mind and brings a shotgun out to the middle of the town baseball game diamonds where a game is in progress, whereupon he is killed by the town sheriff after making threatening moves. The gunman is eerily silent before being killed. Then others begin to have violent natures - people who have been ordinary, good citizens before.

As the movie progresses, the only sane and apparently immune people turn out to be the sheriff and his doctor wife as they seek a way out of the town and away from the plague.