George A. Romero’s ‘THE CRAZIES’ (1973) – Retro Review

Recently, I watched The original 1973 version of George A. Romero’s The Crazies with a group of friends. The Crazies is a film that has existed for a lot longer than people realize, having been remade by Breck Eisner (Sahara 2005) in 2010, and being one of the better remakes among the slew of remakes and reboots made of classic horror films in the 2000’s and briefly extending into the 2010’s. But for a moment, I’d like to talk about the original, because I think it is a classic example of a film done better by its remake.

The Crazies is essentially an entire film adapted from the final scene of Night of the Living Dead, Romero’s debut film in 1968. At the end of that film, a group of Pennsylvania locals shoot and kill the protagonist Ben (Duane Jones: Ganja & Hess 1973), believing him to be one of the living dead. It is a final, gut-wrenching moment that foreshadows where this crisis will go, in that innocent people will become victims to extermination militias believing they are killing the zombies, and therefore creating a new crisis, and demonstrating how in duress, the solution to the problem may be no different or even worse than the problem itself.

The citizens of Evan’s City, Pennsylvania wake up one morning to discover their town placed under aggressive quarantine by the military and CDC officials, and a number of their neighbors having gone homicidally insane. A plane carrying a bio-weapon codenamed Trixie has crashed into the town’s drinking water reservoir, and has infected a number of the city’s population, driving them hopelessly crazy.

What follows are two, dueling subplots, one involving the attempts by firefighter David (Will McMillan: Christmas Evil 1980), his pregnant girlfriend Judy (Lane Caroll: Motorpsycho! 1965), and fellow firefighter Clank (Harold Wayne Jones: Knightriders 1981), to lead a group of survivors to escape the town, dodging trigger-happy service members as well as their neighbors infected with the bioweapon. The other subplot follows the attempts by a combat officer, Colonel Peckam (Lloyd Hollar: One Life to Live 1968), and Trixie developer, Dr. Watts (Richard France: Dawn of the Dead 1978), to contain the situation yet tragically causing the deaths of a number of innocents, and destroying the local population.

The film, like most Romero films, is heavily influenced by current events at the time, namely, the Vietnam War. The ultimate tragedy of the situation is the mishandling of the ordeal, and how the invading military are the real threat, while the bioweapon itself is bad and destructive, yet pales in comparison to the response to it. The Department of Defense, and the CDC are essentially burning down the house to kill a spider. Their subplot consists of aggressive and sympathetic officials alike engaging in arguments about how to handle the impossible situation.

The ultimate issue with this is that these conversations drag on for a good amount of the runtime, and typically involve repeated information that fails to progress their narrative. In my opinion, the only time Romero’s social commentary truly worked was in Dawn of the Dead five years later, in which burgeoning social trends pertaining to consumerism and mindless engagement with materialism predated phenomenons that have only gotten worse since the release of that film, whereas The Crazies is mostly an extension of Night of the Living Dead, albeit in such a blunt fashion, and rehashed themes regarding rampant militarism which were already exhaustively played out by 1973.

The subplot which does work is that of the survivors attempting to escape the town. There’s a reason the remake decided to only adapt this subplot, as it establishes appropriate tension and suspense with more sympathetic characters. This subplot also showcases more of the infected as well, and includes a scene between a daughter and her dad that is so uncomfortable as to be the scariest scene between either this version, or its 2010 remake. The tragedy is enhanced by the fact that these are working class people caught in a horrible situation they absolutely do not deserve, but that is the point of condemning the rampant militarism.

The Crazies is certainly done better by its remake. But there is merit here, and is still an essential part of the Romero canon. You can watch it now on Shudder or stream it free on VUDU Fandango and Tubi.