22 Things I Learned From 'The Crazies'

1. If a Zippo lighter is going to be used later, it must first be introduced and demonstrated as fully functional.

2. Rather than slashing (or shooting) car tyres, the US Military will instead go through the unnecessarily long-winded process of wheel-clamping every vehicle in a containment zone.

3. If the protagonists of a movie about a pandemic viral outbreak are a husband and wife who are town sheriff and town doctor respectively, then numerous references will be made to the role of the sheriff, while the doctor will dress exactly one wound and provide no insight into epidemiology.

4. It’s never a good idea to split up.

5. Always check behind the door.

6. Never flee up stairs. Come on people, it really is time we learnt this one.

7. There’s only one black man in Iowa.

8. Car washes are scary.

9. Bone saws are scary.

10. A lone girl bicycling through an abandoned high street is ridiculous, and not scary.

11. Having no one torn to pieces by a combine harvester is a missed opportunity.

12. Three-day growth goatees are a nightmare for continuity.

13. No car or truck is safe from overturning spectacularly. Or exploding. But not both.

14. Small town mayors always put politics before the safety of the people (see also: ‘Jaws’). They also, oddly, fail to get their comeuppance.

15. It would be more rewarding for audiences if the rules and consequences of infection were delineated in more detail. Or, in fact, any detail at all.

16. The keys are never in the cab.

17. Timothy Olyphant is made for this sort of stuff.

18. Radha Mitchell is not.

19. The American military a) fail to successfully transport a hazardous biological agent from one state to the next, b) cannot secure even the smallest of civilian populations, and c) merrily wait for three full days before deploying the nuclear option they were going to use all along.

20. If a cap and trade system were judiciously applied to the amount of shock moments in horror films, ‘The Crazies’ would be way over quota.

21. Slickness, explosions and chases have replaced tension, satire and existential dread.

22. Just because you can remake a little known George Romero horror film, doesn’t mean you should.