The Crazies (1973)
In Evans City, Pennsylvania, a virus in the nearby water supply infects
a small town with a mysterious illness. The government come in and put the town
in quarantine and under martial law whilst they attempt to restore order,
needless to say some of the locals are none to happy about this. ‘The Crazies’
of the film refer to the affects of the virus on the inhabitants of the town,
the illness sends them somewhat, you guessed it, crazy attacking family members
and causing all sorts of havoc.
‘The Crazies’ is almost like another zombie film, a virus sweeps across
part of America infecting it’s inhabitants and people try to escape the virus
and return to some sort of normality. Where it differs is that ‘The Crazies’ is
not as subtle in it’s social commenting that can be found in ‘Night of the
Living Dead’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead’. ‘The Crazies’ is like an all out attack on
the government’s handling of situations and the in-humane way they treat
situations where their proposed outcome far outweighs that of the few people
affected. Parallels can be drawn with several situations at this time in
America where the government has mishandled situations – the Warren commission
investigating Kennedy’s assignation, Watergate, even the investigation into pornography
as a harmful medium under Nixon’s term was criticised for government
mishandling. America was a imbalanced state during the seventies, still coming
to terms with Vietnam and mishandling of situations as mentioned above, ‘The
Crazies’ goes on to reflect this.
Filmed on a low budget, Romero was still a relative newcomer to film
making at this point and it would take the next few years before he finally
perfected his style in ‘Dawn of the Dead’ but the rawness of ‘The Crazies’ is
half it’s appeal, it almost feels like you are watching a docu-drama and this
only heightens the tension of the film.
www.derangedindustries.co.uk
@derangedtvcrew
Richard France, Ly...
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