Mar 16, 2019
The Crazies (1973)
"The army ain't nobody's friend, man. We know, we've been in it. I don't know about you, but, uh, I'm gonna stick it out with David - 'cos he's gonna make it, he's got a brain."
#the crazies#1973#george a. romero#gun tw#horror film#american cinema#independent film#lane carroll#will macmillan#harold wayne jones#lloyd hollar#lynn lowry#richard liberty#richard france#harry spillman#will disney#leland starnes#bill hinzman#ned schmidtke#edith bell#when i was younger this was a hard to come by film and something of a holy grail for romero fans in the uk. then when the remake#happened it naturally got a dvd release (the one consistent benefit to remakes of old horror films). i saw it then and as im on a bit of a#romero kick atm thought i'd revisit it. in many ways it's a dry run for dawn of the dead with its themes of us vs them and an incapable and#dangerous authority responding to a disaster (specifically im thinking of the first act of dawn before they get to the mall). it would have#been easy to go down the route of heroic townspeople fight off evil army but tbf romero keeps it nuanced where he can. nobody is in the#right here. the army mishandle everything but the townspeople escalate the situation. it's all fairly grim and nihilistic. it's not quite a#complete or satisfactory as the zombie films but it's got some good parts that add up to an ok whole. the cast are middling (romero always#struggled with getting good casts at least until dawn) but lynn lowry stands out as the ethereal and dreamy hippy type turned violent#i think more than any other romero film ymmv here. it's either a libertarian wet dream ala red dawn. or it's a documentary style critique#of modern america in the style of peter watkins. it really depends on your pov. maybe it's neither maybe its both