The Crazies (1973)
Posted on June 21, 2006
Filed Under Creepy stuff, Movies, Sci-fi
It isn’t that surprising to watch a George Romero movie and see someone being brutally murdered. Nor is it that novel to see how he delights in charting the downfall of mankind, usually as a result of our own folly. What marks him out as a great filmmaker is his ability to weave his pretty linear story into a complex narrative on the tragic weakness of humanity, namely our unfathomable combination of dauntless courage and distasteful arrogance. The Dead series is steeped in this notion, with Romero executing a beautiful full-circle from Night to Land in showing audiences how, when the going gets tough we generally go to pieces.
The Crazies seems to hint at all of these themes but never really draws them out. Initially the signs are hopeful, with a town suddenly thrown into chaos when a military plane crashes nearby and disgorges its deadly cargo of the top-secret TRIXIE virus (a nice name for the instrument of Armageddon I thought). In the Dead series the military’s role in the downfall of mankind is always hinted at (along with NASA; the British public will doubtless be thankful that our own modest excursions into Near Space usually fail miserably) but here there is little doubting the military-scientific establishment’s culpability. However, the anti-military polemic never occurs. Perhaps this has something to do with the timing of The Crazies release. By 1973 the Vietnam War was limping to its pitiful conclusion and the American people were starting to see their returning GIs as at best equal victims of a war beyond their control or at worst as pitiable agents of America’s shame who should be paid off and forgotten as quickly as possible. There are some anti-military gestures thrown in for good measure, such as soldiers looting the corpses of the infected townsfolk, but they feel like just that-gestures. Overall it is very difficult to heap too much blame on the rank and file soldiers, a novelty in Romero’s films and one which could perhaps have been developed further.
What about the high command? Again Romero seems to posit them for a kicking but then deflates them as a target. One cannot help but sympathise with the officers sent to Evans City to try and sort out a problem which is clearly not of their making. It has been noted in other places in the Lagoon that Romero’s use of race to deliberately confuse notions of the heroic can be over-analysed but generally seems to hold true. It is instructive therefore that the only black lead in The Crazies is Colonel Peckern, turning Ben from Night on his head. Peckern is an entirely likeable character who obviously has the best interests of Evans City at heart, even when he instigates a brutal regime of martial law. Even those who have concocted the deadly TRIXIE virus (good to see Richard France returning as a heartless if not logical scientist) escape with some sympathy as they struggle to understand what is going on.
The result of this is that the film feels a lot more confused than one might expect from a Romero offering of such promise. It is excellent that everything is thrown into disarray but it is also quite a pit-fall, especially as audiences are left with little resolution as to what exactly has happened. If the film remained focused on those making decisions (i.e. the military and government) it might just have worked. However, by having a parallel plot of some townsfolk trying to escape the quarantine things get a little too disparate and as a result the interesting ideas are bogged down in the detail of execution. For instance, by following Judy, Clank and the others as they try and flee Evans City it is difficult to know whether we should encourage their flight or castigate their selfish folly. The military are rounding people up, but this appears to be for the sole purpose of treatment. Only when rednecks in the outlying farmlands start to resist do the military start to fight back. The only menace that our band is fleeing is that of the virus itself, however it is abundantly clear that one (which means ultimately all) are already infected. Again, it is a novelty for a Romero piece to feel pity for the soldiers gunned by our ‘heroes’. There is a real problem with direction here too, a rare criticism of a Romero film. The two sub-plots are afforded disproportionate attention, and by leaping from one to the other not enough time is granted to allow them to gel together as a whole. This is especially telling of the flight of the townsfolk; because we know little about them it is difficult to mourn them as they succumb to their various fates.
For all of its flaws I enjoyed The Crazies. My disappointment stems from the fact that it is a good movie which had the potential to be a fantastic one. Romero quite obviously looked at the momentum of his earlier Dead offerings and abruptly flipped it on its head. As a result The Crazies does possess the ethos of those earlier works and is, in many respects, even more complex and rewarding. However, there is an undeniable shortfall in the execution of these ideas. The flight of the townsfolk seems to have been dropped in to provide some human anchorage to the abstract and seemingly heartless calculations of the various policymakers. It is superfluous though, as the complex rendering of each of the policymakers is laden in itself with Romero’s narrative of flawed redemption. As a result the film feels crowded and sparse in equal measure.
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