Review of The Crazies (1973) by Dougal S — 29 Jun 2011

This is a bit of an oddity in the Romero catalogue - it combines many elements and themes that he uses in his other films, but this time with deranged people rather than zombies. But you still end up thinking - why didn't he just make another zombie film instead.

Of course he did with 'Dawn of the Dead' - which bears no little similarity to this movie and as such this was probably a dry run for his meisterwerk. In this film a virus, developed as a chemical weapon, is accidentally released on an unsuspecting town, sending the inhabitants insane one by one. The key thrust of the movie however is the juxtaposition of the 'crazies' with the actions of the soldiers brought in to deal with the outbreak. Portrayed as either mindless, gung-ho or sadistic they are willing to kill innocent people to try and cover up the government's complicity, even going so far as to consider dropping an atomic bomb on the town to destroy the evidence.

Romero isn't very subtle in his ant-establishment message and it becomes a very dark and bleak exercise in nihilism as we see the only hopes of a cure destroyed in their rush to save their political skins.

As a horror film there's the usual Romero set pieces of 'Crazies' attacking people in their homes and public places but the gore is relatively low key compared to some of the shock fests he was to create later on.

It's an interesting side note to his zombie fare but ultimately it leaves you feeling like you've watched a video of a dress rehearsal for something bigger.