The Crazies (1973)

PRESS

1976
Cinefantastique vol.5 no.2 (Autumn 1976) p.33 (USA)
The larger budget allows Romero to use colour photography and get away with big crowd scenes, but it is the thematic aspect of the film that makes it fun to watch. While it suffers from its (perhaps intentional) similarities to Night of the Living Dead, it is well-constructed symbolically, despite some lapses in believability and a generally poor script. Romero thwarts the human interest of his story to concentrate on the symbolism, moralism, and, for commercial reasons, the almost unlimited blood and gore. But it is unfair to merely dismiss the film as an off-shoot of Night of the Living Dead. Clearly, Romero is obsessed with the idea of society as a tool of evil, and the onslaught of horror upon horror directed towards an innocent target. The film is Romero's return to pure genre filmmaking after There's Always Vanilla and Jack's Wife, a semi-genre piece, were disastrous failures. It will be intriguing to see what he can achieve with his current project titled Blood, a coproduction with distributor Joseph Brenner. Hopefully he will continue the development of his bleak world view, the effect of evil and violence in our paranoia-prone society. - Jeffrey Frentzen

1978
Films and Filming vol.24 no.7 (April 1978) pp.41-42 (UK)
The Crazies is (…) considerably short on the fascination value that distinguished (Night of the Living Dead and Martin), which admittedly leaves it room enough to be a good deal better than a run of the mill horror movie. The surprising thing is that here we have the brand of horror that comes so close to probability as to ring true in a way that should be utterly unnerving, and yet it isn't… A revolt by surviving citizens and a shootout in the neighbouring woods, can rally a bit of the elusive zip, to be sure; but the movie remains no more than a slightly better than average programmer in the horror genre, rather than the superior stuff one expects from Romero. - Gordon Gow

Time Out no.410 (10 - 16 February 1978) p.35 (UK)
Night of the Living Dead suggested that George Romero was an unusual if none too clearly defined talent; two non-horror movies later, The Crazies (…) proves it. (Romero) brilliantly updates the riddle Don Siegel first posed in Bodysnatchers (sic): how can one tell who is infected and who isn't? The virus drives its victims mad before killing them, but what is the line between 'normal' hysteria and actual insanity? Second, and equally brilliantly, he demonstrates the difficulty in imposing martial law on a community of gun-owners, thereby creating a highly feasible vision of social collapse. Good dialogue and performances too. Altogether, enough plusses to help you overlook weak plotting and occasional lapses into cliché. - Tony Rayns

1994
Sight and Sound vol.4 no.11 (November 1994) p.62 (UK)
Echoes of Night of the Living Dead abound in this average paranoia movie about a plane carrying a deadly virus which crashes in a small mid-West town. The attempt to provide an effective critique on militarism is heavy-handed and obvious with Romero better at maintaining a high body count than being profound. - Peter Dean

Last Updated: 15 October, 2008