Great watch, will watch again, and do recommend.

I have no idea how I went 10 years without seeing this one.

It shows you my frame of mind when this was the most uplifting thing of my day.

This is a great survivalist movie: an unknown infection occurs in a small rural town, and the government is closing in to secure and "decontaminate" the area. And get nothing wrong, "our" government will contain, secure, and then protect, in that order.

Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell kill in this, they're great start to finish. Joe Anderson does steal the show a few times though, really embodying the spirit of a rage filled person. Danielle Panabaker is the reason this got on my radar at all, but she is sort of "emotional teen girl", and I feel she's too big an actor for that, so it wasn't my favorite part.

The writing is well done, in a progressive manner that makes me think that we really missed out on a "The Crazies" videogame. The thing that makes this the infection more interesting than the average rabid / zombie movie, is that these infected are still "smart". Now they're uncontrollably driven to kill, but they can do it by car / rifle / coordinated attack, and even an overwhelming mob. Hell they can even set traps.

So you're basically fighting insane people on PCP. The infection effect seems to differ based on how inclined you are to kill people. There were a couple that managed to hide until they came across someone they had motivation to kill before infection. Some people are just confused, like they don't understand why they're doing what they're doing. Others "round up da' boys" and go a hooting and hollering. The range of behaviors keep you on your toes.

On top of the infected, you have the military cleansing the area who (in theory) are still in their right mind, and no idea what is the infection vector.

I really enjoyed this, it did remind me of "Mom and Dad" which has a similar infection, but the psychological motivations are much clearer and have a very nice built in complexity.