The Crazies (1973)

Plot Outline: A military plane carrying a biological weapon crashes near Evans City, Pennsylvania and leaks into the town's water supply causing the local population to go insane. The military go in to try and cover the whole thing up and stop the virus from spreading but the local population see them as a menace and begin to resist. As a scientist races to find a cure for the highly contagious virus, a group of people try to escape from the clutches of the military.

The Review: It's quite easy to compare this to Romero's later effort, Dawn of the Dead in which a group of people try and escape from a bleak, 'end of the world' scenario. This isn't as good but that doesn't mean it's bad in any sense. In many aspects this looks like a prototype for it as Romero tries out different ideas, knowing he can probably get away with it. The Crazies starts off abruptly with little back history (just the way I like it) and then rockets along with a fast pace and quick editing between scenes to give you a great feeling of panic, fear and a general discombobulating approach. The military and government are spared no mercy as Romero portrays them as corrupt (watch as soldiers continually steal little items from cars and houses as they round everyone up in the city), inept (the ending where the soldiers wrongly round up the scientist who has just found the cure) and brutal (their continual use of unnecessary force in dealing with people). Gore fans will also love some scenes here especially when an innocent old lady repeatedly stabs a soldier with a knitting needle! The acting isn't great but at least with the unknown actors, you get a greater sense of realism. Romero also makes an uncredited appearance as the rather loud-mouthed Mayor of Evans City. He directed, wrote and edited it so he might as well have acted in it too!

Final Verdict: The Crazies is always forgotten as people tend to remember Romero for his zombie trilogy. That's a shame because it's a pretty good film with all of his trademarks in (commentaries about society, bleak undertones, tons of gore). Despite this, the similarities with his zombie films are evident and this is practically Dawn of the Dead except with crazy people involved. Worth a look.

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