When it was first released in 1973, George A. Romero's The Crazies was seen by many critics as an imitative and less effective version of his earlier cult phenomena, Night of the Living Dead (1968) but, despite some superficial similarities, the film's thought-provoking and completely plausible premise is much more relevant three decades later. At the time, however, due to inadequate distribution and a confused marketing campaign (in some areas, the film was released under the title Code Name: Trixie), The Crazies vanished from theatres before it had a chance to find its audience. Today its frenzied, fever-pitch narrative depicting a germ warfare weapon gone awry and a society breaking down to its most primitive level under martial law seems remarkably prescient for a 1973 film. It's also one of the rare times that a film's obvious low-budget, lack of a name cast and crude shock effects work in its favor, giving it a raw immediacy not unlike a breaking news story.

Romero dispenses with a conventional plot set-up, opting instead to open the film in full crisis mode in the wake of a cataclysmic event: a military plane carrying an untested biological virus with no known antidote has crashed near Evans City, Pennsylvania (a real place) and soon there are reports of homicides and psychotic behavior by the local residents. The area is quickly surrounded by gun-welding militia in white biohazard suits and gas masks who attempt to round up all of the town's survivors and quarantine them until an antidote can be found. In the ensuing chaos, a small band of local residents manage to escape confinement and hide in the woods. Among them are an elderly man who is already affected with the virus; a father and daughter, Artie (Richard Liberty) and Kathy (Lynn Lowry); an unmarried couple expecting their first child, David (W. G. McMillan) and Judy (Lane Carroll), and Clank (Harold Wayne Jones), a former army buddy of David. Romero escalates the tension by cutting between the atrocities committed by the government-sanctioned troops under martial law while depicting the growing paranoia of the escapees, some of whom succumb to their dark sides. In the film's grim final chapters, Artie acts out his incestuous feelings toward his daughter while Clank becomes increasingly addled and violent, his rage intensified by his jealousy of Artie and Judy, his former girlfriend. Like the ironic conclusion of Night of the Living Dead, Romero doesn't play to genre expectations and avoids a neat formulaic ending which may be too downbeat for some tastes but stays true to the film's apocalyptic vision.

A film that can be appreciated on multiple levels, The Crazies works as a cautionary tale about the dangers of a military regime. Or as a doomsday scenario of how the social order breaks down when people are forced to survive by their wits without any resources. Or as a Vietnam allegory. The death and destruction that visits Evans City has clear parallels to the massacre at My Lai. Some scenes are even more direct in their referencing, particularly the scene where a priest protests against soldiers entering his church by immolating himself; it's clearly inspired by that famous newsreel clip of a Buddhist monk setting fire to himself in defiance of South Vietnam's Diem regime. The Crazies can even be seen as a black comedy. The title could be referring to the heavily-armed soldiers mindlessly carrying out their orders without questioning the morality of their actions. Romero's sly, subversion sense of humor is constantly on display and no scene better illustrates this than the one where a soldier in full biohazard dress is unexpectedly stabbed to death with a knitting needle by a seemingly sweet, docile old lady.

Even if it didn't have all of these fascinating curves, The Crazies would deserve a place in cult cinema history for the casting of Lynn Lowry alone. In her famous final scene, when she wanders into a deadly standoff with a band of armed soldiers - "Do you want to play with me?" - you can't help but think of the 1970 Kent State University shootings by Ohio National Guardsmen in the way the scene is shot and played. Lowry's little-girl-lost quality is perfect for this role as she drifts from quiet panic into a beatific form of madness. The actress's early career was distinguished by her appearance in a number of seminal fringe movies from her blood-crazed hippie girl in I Drink Your Blood (1970) to her double role in the adult film industry melodrama Sugar Cookies (1973) to a sex-parasite victim in David Cronenberg's They Came from Within (aka Shivers, 1975) to her bisexual swinger in Radley Metzger's Score (1973) to her ill-fated hooker in Paul Schrader's remake of Cat People (1982). The Crazies, though, might be her real moment of glory and easily one of her best performances.

George Romero has often stated that The Crazies is a personal favorite of his even though its poor reception and distribution was a great disappointment. Tony Williams, in his comprehensive reference work The Cinema of George A. Romero, aptly sums it up when he writes, "The Crazies is an important film. It reveals Romero as beginning to articulate clearly his creative role as a knight of the living dead, whether they be fictional human characters, zombies or cinema audiences."

Producer: A.C. Croft
Director: George A. Romero
Screenplay: Paul McCollough, George A. Romero
Cinematography: S. William Hinzman
Film Editing: George A. Romero
Music: Melissa Manchester, Bruce Roberts
Cast: Lane Carroll (Judy), Will MacMillan (David), Harold Wayne Jones (Clank), Lloyd Hollar (Colonel Peckem), Lynn Lowry (Kathy Bolman), Richard Liberty (Artie Bolman).
C-103m.

by Jeff Stafford