THE CRAZIES (1973) - George A. Romero's pandemic prediction.

DIRECTED & WRITTEN by George A. Romero based on a screenplay - "The Mad People" by Paul McCollough.

STARRING  - Lane Carroll as Judy,  Will McMillan as David,  Harold Wayne Jones as Clank,  Lloyd Hollar as Colonel Peckem,  Lynn Lowry as Kathy,  Richard Liberty as Artie,  Richard France as Dr. Watts,  Harry Spillman as Major Ryder,  Will Disney as Dr. Brookmyre.

PLOT - One night in the small town of Evans City, Pennsylvania, a man runs amok murdering his wife as she sleeps. He then burns down his home whilst his two children are still inside. At first, the local authorities believe it to be an isolated incident, a broken man pushed over the edge and commiting a tragic act. However, other members of the town soon begin to act in strange, erratic and often dangerous ways.

The U.S. military arrives in town and places it under quarantine. It transpires that a few days previously an army plane carrying an experimental bio-weapon crashed near the town. The bio-weapon was a virus, codename - "Trixie". The "Trixie" virus is airbourne, highly contagious and causes those who become infected to either die outright or turn into homicidal maniacs.

Local fireman David's girlfriend, Judy is pregnant and he vows to get her out of the town and into safety. Teaming up with his best friend, Clank and a pair of survivors, a father and daughter named Artie and Katy, David overpowers the military guards who have come to take them away and the five of them go on the run.

Meanwhile, the virus's creator, Dr. Watts is drafted in to work on an antidote, if he doesn't succeed, military bases have the town in thier range and nuclear missiles will be despatched to blow the community off the map.

Can Dr. Watts find a cure before the entire town is eradicated, and will David and his friends manage to make it past the heavily armed military cordon before time runs out for them all ? Most importantly - who is infected and who is not ?...

DIALOUGE  - Clank - "I'm not right, am I ?"

PERFORMANCES  - All of the performances in The Crazies come across as fast and frenetic and full of anxiety and panic. This works well considering the theme of the movie, it's full of fast paced dialogue and paranoid monologues. All the performances are very naturalistic which adds to the disturbing sense of realism that this film seeks to evoke.

Will McMillan plays the closest thing the film has to a central hero, David. He's a pretty straightforward character at first, he just wants himself, his girlfriend and his best friend to get out safely. Whether he's actually RIGHT to want to break the cordon is another matter entirely. After all, David or any number of his party may well be infected with the virus themselves and breaking out of quarantine may risk infecting more people. This moral quandary makes David into a far more interesting central protaganist than he initially appears to be. You can certainly understand, even applaud his motives, but as we all know sometimes the road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Lane Carroll as Judy lends her character an air of vulnerability. She's shocked and horrified by the situation she finds herself in and also by the way things seem to be spiralling out of control. Speaking of things spiralling out of control, we then have Harold Wayne Jones as Clank. Clank is David's best friend and also a veteran of the Vietnam war. Before the virus even hits he seems a little off to begin with. Once the fight for survival begins, Clank becomes progressively more ruthless, pragmatic and violent. The audience (and indeed the other characters) find themselves asking - Is Clank acting this way because of hysteria and desperation or is he one of the infected ? Once again this moraly grey area serves to make Clank into a deeper and more interesting character than he first appears.

Then we have the two survivors who tag along with our main trio of characters, Artie and his daughter Kathy played by Romero regular Richard Liberty and Lynn Lowry. It soon becomes apparent that both Artie and Kathy are infected by "Trixie" and the two actors really knock it out of the park in these scenes. In a truly disturbing scene, Artie succumbs to the virus's effects and tries to rape his own daughter. Whilst this incestuous action is cringey enough on its own, to make matters worse Kathy actually appears to be ENJOYING her father's twisted attentions. Liberty plays these scenes with a sweaty, leering intensity and once again we find ourselves asking - is this just an effect of the virus or was Artie always this way inclined. Has the virus merely released his inhibitions ?

When Kathy goes mad she seems to be less violent than some of the infected, she seems more spaced out than anything else. Of course, this leads her to be a liability in other ways as she becomes prone to wandering off into dangerous situations due to her blissed out state. Lowry has an almost ethereal beauty about her and this physicality helps lend weight to her performance.

Rounding out the main cast, we have Lloyd Hollar as Colonel Peckem, the weary and browbeaten military "clean up man" and another Romero regular in the shape of Richard France as Dr. Watts. Both actors are very good in thier roles and both characters have a worn down tiredness to them. Neither wants to be doing what they are being forced to, but orders are orders and the greater good must be adhered to no matter what the cost for themselves both moraly and psychologically.

SFX  - The Crazies is not a massively effects heavy film. Theres a bit of practical gore, fake blood and explosive squibs for gunshot wounds, but thats really all there is. Theres also a not very convincing Helicopter crash staged at one point as well.

SEX & VIOLENCE  - As you would expect from a film which involves a virus turning normal everyday civilians into homicidal maniacs, The Crazies features a lot of violence. Most of the violence seems to be directed towards the hazmat suited soldiers and considering thier harsh treatment of many of the townsfolk earlier in the film, its actually quite satisfying to see these people getting thier comeuppance. There's one great scene where a soldier gets stabbed by a seemingly harmless old woman armed with a pair of knitting needles. There's another scene where a soldier gets run through with a pitchfork and lies dying on the floor, his gasmask goggles filling up with blood as he vomits his last...

We see hapless troopers get beaten, burnt and shot down. The same fate also befalls the ranks of the infected in equal numbers. It's an absolute bloodbath. 

There are many scenes which evoke memories of Romero's earlier Night Of The Living Dead. Particularly the visual of the unarmed zombie like infected being blown away by heavily armed soldiers in a rural setting...

This sense of familiarity only increases when we see the scenes of soldiers casually burning the bodies of the infected, recalling the final scene of Night Of The Living Dead...

Naturally, the infected are no strangers to commiting atrocities of thier own. We get shots of muder victims that have fallen to the hands of thier own loved ones...

We also get moments when the infected cause harm to themselves, for instance at one point we see the local preist set himself on fire...

Its just the way that he so calmly does it. Its like something out of the end times and adds to the movie's overall apocalyptic feel.

RATING  - The Crazies is an unrelentingly grim Sci-fi thriller. Nobody comes out of this film looking heroic or noble. It's a story of bad decisions causing more bad decisions to be made and the resulting consequences thereof. Everything tips out of control and the film ends on a real downer.  After everything we have seen, after everything that has been done to contain the outbreak, the film ends up with reports coming in of cases being reported in neighbouring towns. The viral genie is out of the lamp and nothing is going to stop it...

Of course, as we all sit here in the year 2023, we have all survived a recent Pandemic. In those dark days of 2020, when we all staring down the barrel of Covid 19's gun, we all saw people succumb to panic and paranoia. We all saw people act in thoughtless and often selfish ways. We where all witness to draconian and heavy handed methods of containing the virus that where imposed upon us by our leaders. We all saw mistakes made and we all saw the consequences of those mistakes. We all saw the dark side of human nature. The Crazies is a very prescient film in retrospect, it completely nails that feeling to a tee. Its by no means an easy watch in this day and age and its certainly not a feel good movie, but if you're after something a little more thought provoking then give this a watch.

Overall - 4 viral outbreaks out of 5.

Once again, this film inspired some great V.H.S. and DVD artwork, which you can see below...