spooky!

The Crazies (1973)

Around a small, mostly rural area of Pennsylvania, a virus is on the loose. The military moves in to take control of the situation but what will it take to contain the problem? Perhaps even a nuclear weapon dropped from a B-52 Bomber ordered to circle overhead?

Called a horror movie, there's nothing to truly warrant that label. Some of the local residents turn completely homicidally insane, there's a ton of totally fake gunshot wounds, but no zombies as director George A. Romero is known for.

In one way this truly is a horror movie and that's if you imagine this happening for real. What would our government do to contain a virus that could potentially wipe out the entire population of not just a small town but the entire country?! Would they round people up and not tell them what's happening? Probably. Would they lie? Of course they would. Would they sacrifice all the citizens within an entire perimeter? Would the citizens be able to fight back?

It's probably ludicrous to think about but who knows. Could such an accident even take place in America today? Scarily yeah, it probably freakin' could! Hopefully, of course, it never will and the closest that America will come is in this movie... or in the new remake that might very well be in production right now to come out in 2008. And that remake undoubtedly will be a better movie than this was. The budget Romero worked with was immensely miniscule and that's clearly visible throughout. Acting from almost every character, major and minor, is a long way from Oscar-worthy. No Olivier or Brando here, that's for sure.

But it works. It all works. The pace cruises along and if the viewer can look past the unprofessional production, there's enough substance here that pulls everything together and makes it worth watching. This is surely a film I will check out again someday.