The Crazies

Directed by: George Romero
Starring: Lane Carroll, WG McMillan, Harold Wayne Jones, Lynn Lowry

The Crazies starts off in the middle of the night with two kids hearing an intruder breaking things in their house. They run into their parent’s bedroom where they simultaneously discover 2 things: (1) their mother is dead and bloody in bed; and (2) the ‘intruder’ is actually their dad who has gone stark raving mad. He sets the house on fire with the kids still inside, and this movie is underway.

As the local volunteer fire department rushes to put out the fire, swarms of military personnel start arriving in the town. It is clear that something is happening in the small town of Evans City that is more serious that a simple house fire. It turns out that a plane carrying an experimental biological weapon (codename TRIXIE) recently crashed outside the town. Despite the government’s covert attempts to clean it up, its contents have seeped into the water supply and everyone who drinks it becomes a homicidal maniac… one of the Crazies.

Government authorities outside the city block all communication with the Evans City and place the city under martial law… armed soldiers gather the city’s residents from their homes, churches, and discos and quarantine them in the local high school… a plane is put into the air above the city carrying a bomb in case the contagion begins to spread… scientists are brought to town to try to develop a cure… and this is just the first 20 minutes. Romero creates a very strong sense of confusion and chaos here through the use of quick cuts, lots of fighting, and militaristic music.

The rest of the movie follows a group of citizens who try to escape both the Crazies and the soldiers. This movie obviously can be compared to the Romero zombie movies… a small band of uninfected survivors must survive the mindless monsters outside (and inside?) their group. However, at least to me, the idea of a smiling grandmother stabbing someone to death with knitting needles is much scarier that an undead zombie eating someone’s brains. There is just something cool about the discrepancy between what the Crazies do and how they look while doing it.

The gore here is good, but not as good as other Romero movies. This movie shares some of the weaknesses that Romero movies often have… uneven acting and pacing problems. The middle third of this movie in particular really seemed to drag. However, the opening and closing portions have enough going on to make up for it. In addition, there is a great subplot about government incompetence that reminded me a lot of some of Dr. Strangelove.

The DVD release by Blue Underground contains a few trailers and TV spots. There’s also an interesting interview with Lynn Lowry about her appearance in several exploitation classics, and about her current career as a lounge singer! If you like this movie, look for the remake that is in the allegedly works, to be directed by Brad Anderson (The Machinist, Session 9).


Micah