DOES the world need more zombie movies? Probably not ? unless they?re quirky and fresh, like last year?s ?Zombieland.? Still, if you?re looking for cheap thrills and gore, no other subgenre delivers this with as much gusto as the zombie flick.

Offering this, and sometimes a bit more, is ?The Crazies,? a remake of the 1973 George Romero original. Directed by Breck Eisner from a screenplay by Scott Kosar and Ray Wright, the film is set in a small farming town in Iowa whose citizens inexplicably succumb to a virus that turns them into homicidal maniacs. Unbeknownst to them ? until the town sheriff makes the discovery, anyway ? a government plane with a virus payload has crashed nearby, and the nasty thing has infected their water supply!

Quarantine facility

As people start getting sick, maiming and killing family and friends in the process, government humvees roll into town bearing gas-masked, containment-suited personnel. The town is transformed into a cross between a quarantine facility and a concentration camp in the blink of an eye, with no one having a clear idea as to what exactly is going on. Things take a turn for the even more hellish when the government apparently decides that everyone there should just die ? !

Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his pregnant wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell), also the town doctor, are the central figures here. They, along with Deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) and Judy?s teenage assistant, Becca (Danielle Panabaker), have the unenviable task of making their way out of town, fighting both the zombies and soldiers.

All in all, it sounds like a fairly standard zombie movie. What makes ?The Crazies? a cut above the usual horror B-movie fare, however, is how very workmanlike it is. Eisner ? the son of former Disney executive, Michael ? keeps the tension thrumming throughout ? it hums steadily in the background even in the most innocuous scenes.

Rhythmic sound

While there are cheap scares here and there, you?ll appreciate how Eisner takes time to build the suspense and underscore it. There?s a scene in a car wash, for example, (probably a horror-movie first) where there are more things coming at you than rotating brushes, and the rhythmic sound of machinery adds to your feeling of dread.

Then, there?s the funeral-parlor scene ? the setting is an old-horror standby, but the buzzing bone saw and where it goes is memorable.

There?s also the deranged high school principal with a pitchfork, which scratches against the floor as he slowly walks.

Its details like those, as well as the overall economy taken with most of the scenes, that make ?The Crazies? more than just another schlocky, loony zombie flick.