Bloody-Disgusting spent an evening on the chilly set of THE CRAZIES April 7th in Fort Valley, GA at Peach County High School. During the windy, brisk night we had the chance to view a crucial scene involving a military attempt to contain the virus by dividing the infected from the healthy into large, fenced internment camps. The shoot is one of the biggest scenes in the movie and you can read more about it in our CRAZIES set report.

Lovely genre darling Radha Mitchell was in surprisingly high spirits before the night’s dramatic sequence, wearing a big smile and giggling regularly as she sipped her drink through a chewed straw. Of all the interviews of the evening, Mitchell’s was by far the most informative.

BD: Can you talk about what the scene is that’s shooting tonight.

Radha Mitchell: Well, you know the conceit of the story is that’s there’s been this situation where a chemical weapon has been accidentally dumped into the water supply system. So this town has been infected, so everyone is sort of victimized by that situation. And the government officials is trying to suppress that information and also keep the situation contained.

In this scene we’re lining up, basically heading to the concentration camp and we don’t know what’s going to happen to us. And I don’t think the government officials know exactly how they are going to deal with us either. They are measuring people’s temperature to see who’s got an elevated temperature. And the people that appear to be sick are being pushed in one direction and the other people are being pushed in the other direction. And maybe they’re going to be taken out of the town. We don’t know. And MAYBE we’re going to be separated tonight? (Laughs)

BD: Are there labor pains involved?

RM: Well, she’s not that pregnant. She’s, like, skinny pregnant. So it’s just the beginning. She’s the town doctor. Yeah, I actually would have liked for there to be a bump, but there’s no bump at all. You wouldn’t know and that’s part of this scene is she has an elevated temperature because she’s pregnant but of course they don’t believe that or they don’t care. So she’s going in one direction and he’s going in the other and its hopefully going to be quite dramatic.

BD: Its good to see you in another horror movie. Obviously it doesn’t scare you to keep doing genre projects?

RM: It’s a remake of a Romero movie, so its a thrilling horror movie. It’s interesting shooting it actually finding out how much horror there is and how much of a thriller it is. There are beats that are quite full of suspense and some beats that are quite emotionally intense. And there are these horrific-looking Crazies walking around who fulfill that criteria of looking quite theatrical... That combined with this sort of naturalist style will be quite interesting.

BD: Have you ever done a picture set in a location like this before?

RM: I’ve never been down south before. I’ve gone horse-riding and was invited to go pig hunting. I was going to bring you all some boiled peanuts, but I couldn’t find any. It’s great to be down here. Where were we the other night, we were singing karaoke at [Bahama Bob’s], which is like a trailer. Everyone of all different shapes and sizes were in there grinding. It was actually a great bar. It’s probably one of the best bars I’ve ever been to. People were very cool. It felt very authentic. So it has been a good experience to be down here.

BD: How straining has this been?

RM: I had a sore neck the other day because I was bashing the heck out of a crazy, which was fun. That kind of thing does take its toll on your muscles. You need epsom salts if you’re going to do a movie like this.

BD: What were you bashing the crazy with?

RM: Bare hands. It was fun. If you don’t have the gun, you want to have something like that.

BD: How are the physical demands compared to others movies?

RM: Everything you do seems to be a demanding. This has been interesting because a lot of it isn’t so much in the dialogue but in the action and activities. A fight scene with a crazy can be quite physical. You don’t feel it while you’re acting, but each day you go, ‘That hurts.’

BD: So you’re fighting people off throughout the whole movie?

RM: No, that was kind of a high point and hopefully there will be more of those kinds of scenes. The scene that we’re shooting tomorrow night is quite intense as well. We go into the situation where the people who’ve got the disease are going to be. I’m going to be strapped to this gurney and injected with stuff. It’s genuinely intense and the emotions that go with that are quite intense as well.

BD: When you’re on the run with Tim and Joe, what are those moments like?

RM: We’ve been just a group of four for most of the movie. It is a story of four people who are kind of on the run. You see this political experience who the eyes of these people from the town. They are thrown together in this way. It’s been really nice to be able to work as a group and see how the nuances of our characters interact under these extreme circumstances.

Joe’s character is really interesting to watch going through that as well, but I can’t tell you why. (Laughs)

BD: You have the encounter with the group of religious people in Silent Hill and now you’re in the bible belt.

RM: I had no experience [during Silent Hill] with that side of America. I didn’t know really what it was other than what I’d been told. Here, there is a church everywhere you go. It’s the one thing that I’ll have missed out on doing is going to one of these church ceremonies, which would have been amazing to have done having been down south. It really is the bible belt here and I feel like I’ve learned about America being down here.

BD: Is there a paranoia touching throughout the movie in terms of who’s got the disease and who doesn’t?

RM: Yes, its certainly an aspect of the story is who’s sane and who’s not and who can you trust and who can’t you trust? But I can’t tell you any more than that. It’s certainly something that keeps everyone on their toes, that they can’t really trust each other.

BD: Where does this role stand for you in your genre roles?

RM: I’ve really enjoyed it. What I like about the story is they’re like a normal couple. They’re a married couple that are going through this crazy situation. They are relying on each other and I don’t think you see that a lot in this genre. They’re in love and they’ve got the baby and they’re just normal. That’s what attracted me to the story in the first place.

BD: What sets off the events and pulls you into the action?

RM: I’m playing the town doctor and he’s playing the sheriff, so there’s a weird thing that’s occurring in the first scene which triggers his suspicion. And people are coming into the clinic with this weird kind of aura. We can’t quite figure out what it is and then the pieces all get put together and David kind of figures out [it’s all] connected. As soon as we figure it out, we’re in the middle of it all. We kind of fall into it as we figure it out what it is at the same time. Just as they understand what’s going on, they become completely victimized by the situation.

BD: Do you feel these characters avoid some of the horror cliches?

RM: Always the girl does the stupid thing and always she’s screaming. I try not to have too much of that going on. Of course someone’s got to be screaming or otherwise its not scary. You’ve got to have the intense emotions going on. But I try to keep it rational and I try to have some respect for the female characters.

BD: Have you thought about this kind of thing actually happening as you work on it?

RM: Well I think the power of the story is its quite conceivable. This could happen and if it did happen you wouldn’t be trusting the government to be taking care of you. And I can cite incidents, but I won’t go into it, where this has happened. But just the way society is structured. This is the kind of thing that would get buried if it was possible to do that. If there’s a bunch of people that may or may not be infected, I can’t imagine them being invited into society. Who knows what some of these chemical weapons are designed to do and how capable are we of guiding them? Do we really trust the bureaucracy to be able to do that?

BD: Are you using southern accent?

RM: No, we have sort of Iowa-ish American accents.

BD: Any horror projects in your future?

RM: Just global poverty and that kind of thing. Just the normal horror. (Laughs)

THE CRAZIES hits theaters February 26, 2010 from Overture Films.

Full Crazies Report:

Click here for our set report
Click here for our interview with FX artist Rob Hall
Click here for our interview with star Radha Mitchell
Click here for our interview with director Breck Eisner