George Romero's The Crazies involves a biochemical warfare virus code-named "Trixie" that gets into the water supply of Evans City, PA. It has two equally unpleasant effects, either killing its victims outright or driving them hopelessly insane. The military descends on the town like a plague of locusts, quarantining the area and dragging the frightened citizens from their homes to be corralled at the local high school while the "powers that be" figure out what to do. Human interest revolves
around firefighting Nam vet David and his pregnant wife, Judy, who try to escape the quarantine, the virus, and the militant redneck locals whom Romero portrays as even more fearsome than the soldiers. There's also an infected father and daughter, played by Richard Liberty (Day of the Dead) and pretty Lynn Lowry (Shivers), who gives the film's best performance as an innocent waif who mourns the passing of her own sanity. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
It's tough for a dyed-in-the-wool George Romero apologist to observe that a film of Romero's in good repute is an amateurish, exploitative piece of shit
Too rational to endure alongside George A. Romero's nightmarish Living Dead movies, The Crazies is still a tense, visceral, politically aware cult classic.
While George Romero would come to redefine horror once again with his brilliant Dawn of the Dead, this interesting action thriller illustrates the talent it took to be such a consistent genre visionary.
Though it sounds like it ought to have more in the way of exploitation and gore, Romero shoots it straight, hoping his social commentary will carry it. It works superbly.
Romero's mordant wit and bleak outlook on humanity (in which all of the things people look to for safety-family, friends, government-eventually turn on them as panic takes over) make this a key film for fans of his work.
A small American town is quarantined by the military to prevent the spread of an extremely virulent contagion that induces madness and death. Made in between Romero's Night and Dawn Of The Dead films, The Crazies is almost like a stepping stone that provides an insight into what might have happened when the zombie
plague started to spread. Unfortunately zombies are a damn sight more interesting than people going a bit batshit and as a result, this very low budget B-movie struggles to make any impact at all. It bounces between behind the scenes of the put upon military and its scientists trying to find a cure, and a group of mildly annoying civilians trying to escape the quarantine zone which amounts to the film being 50% men in uniform shouting at each other and 50% people running around in the woods shooting guns. And that's it. There are none of the clever analogies or subtexts (or plot for that matter) you find in the Dead series and it soon becomes extremely tiresome. It's clearly an influential film, the opening scenes obviously inspiring those of the Dawn Of The Dead remake and the "fast zombie" format of modern horror was clearly born here but there's just not enough to it to warrant an hour and three quarters of your time. The fact is, it's just plain boring.
June 6, 2007
xGary Xx
Super Reviewer
First of all, Romero reuses the plot of Night of the Living Dead, but sets it outside instead. I don't know what the point of this movie is supposed to be, why didn't he just make another zombie movie? And why did they remake this?
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