The Crazies

Romero's not quite in top form here. Though I like the premise, the "crazies" aren't very threatening with the exception of maybe one or two scenes. The result is that it turns into an examination of the blundering and brutal martial state, which becomes pretty dull pretty fast. It's not bad for low budget horror, but it's certainly no "Night of the Living Dead."

Gets better as it goes on. Nothing groundbreaking or anything, but the early bits are so agonizingly deficient that anything even slightly improved is welcome.

More of a movie about inept military response than a zombie virus type film. Memorable white suits. Baffling why there wasn't more biohazard protection. Good contrast between regular Army guy and green beret guy. Fav scene: utter ridiculousness of shooting down a helicopter.

(Viewed on 15/01/14): Romero was apparently disappointed with it, and for good reason: it's a poorly paced and badly acted take on ideas he would properly develop later with Dawn and Day. The editing actually resembles Dawn, but it's even sloppier, making it difficult for the viewer to appreciate the action scenes. It also moves around from location to location, which isn't Romero's strength as a director, who seems to benefit from shooting in confined spaces. It's a real letdown overall.

The Crazies is a sometimes slow-paced zombie-esque horror, but more along the lines of the rage-inducing virus seen in 28 Days Later. The addition of two possible outcomes to infection with the virus varies the action a little, but it generally sticks to the now predictable plotline of accidental release of a bio-weapon and eventual quarrantine procedures. It's by no means bad, but the exhaustion of the basic idea behind the movie as dulled down its appeal over time.

The pacing in this film was not to my liking, and despite the subject matter this film didn't scare me at all. The premise, though, is excellent and Romero does an awesome job of making you wonder who is and isn't infected.

The premise is interesting, the social commentary and themes are there, but unfortunate the movie itself is disappointingly boring. The acting is so bad, that with a lot of characters I couldn't make out if they were crazy or not.

Bad acting, cheap looking special effects, bad story (well, maybe it WAS innovative at the time). Overall it is completely amateur movie. That holds some charm in itself. If it is not for Romero' name, I doubt anyone would remember this film.

There are a lot of flaws to this film (e.g bad acting, cliched motifs, and awkward action scenes), but the social commentary at the center of the script shines through. It's a striking satire of the incompetence of government agencies, the mindlessness of hippie counter-culture and the general shittiness of human nature. If Kubrick picked up this film, it could have turned out to be a sequel-in-spirit to Dr. Strangelove.

story was probably great on paper, but on film the satire stretches too long and becomes boring and by the time you have any action with the survivors its far too late, plus their story was not very interesting anyway. the ending was ridiculously predictable. acting was pretty good though which i hadn't expected.

ZZzzzzZzzzZZzZZZzzz

As with Night of the Living Dead, the Vietnam war suffuses the whole thing. Unlike Night, it's not very good. Romero the scriptwriter has a ton of fun with it, turning it a lot darker than most similar movies, but Romero the director - not to mention half the cast - seems to be on bad drugs; it's simply a mess, with scenes so badly shot or edited that you far too often find yourself going "OK, what I think is meant to be shown here is..." A pity.

Romero serves up a real sense of panic with this frantically paced story of a town in peril, filled with characters who insist on constantly yelling. It goes a little too Red Dawn, but the paranoia is well done.

Decent satirical horror film that shows the ineptness of government planning taken to a degree that is as scary as the film itself. Everything is adequate with nothing extremely outstanding with the exception of a few deaths and scenes that make you go "oh fuck, why?" I'm looking at you man with beaker scene. Good for a watch, nothing exceptional.

61.1.

Romero's non-zombie pic about a bio-toxin that causes homicidal insanity. Lots of bloody action, but overall it's lacking the sharp satirical quality that made his Dead films so good.

Remarkably terrible sound editing.

George Romero #1

Viewed October 11, 2020.

Covid Canon. Not quite on the level of something like Dr Strangelove wrt it’s attack on government bureaucracy and incompetence but it still works well as satire today. Manages to mine its horror not from violence or gore or anything scary in a traditional sense (a thing Romero has done well in his films so far), but from that same government incompetence. Filming it almost like a documentary helps in that regard as well. Iconic guys in white NBC suits

Looks cheaper than his other greats, but this is still a chilling examination of how people react in a crisis.

I couldn't care for anyone.

Even after the completely boring first half, the real meat of this movie is something that George himself has done better time and time again. The majority of the soundtrack consists of a single snare drum, and if that's good film making, I think my calling is in cinema. Not terrible, but certainly not impressive, and has a dud of an ending.

Romero was always good at cultivating a sense of apocalyptic chaos, and he does it well here, despite the horrid editing and non-acting.

I quite enjoy this early offering from Romero. It is rather raw looking, but it's strength is the social commentary that it brings up.

Score based on distant memory.

Waking up yet?

Another deep Romero horror film

It's not awful, but Romero has certainly done better. The survivors storyline takes a long time to get into gear but, once it gets going, it's quite engaging. This has a couple advantages over the remake- the inclusion of the military perspective is interesting, and the fact that the Crazies show no physical symptoms of their infection ramps up the suspense of guessing who might be crazy. On the other hand, the remake's single-minded focus on the survivors allows for better pacing.

Fairly solid, and created inbetween his "Dead" movies, this is a satire/sci-fi film but not a horror movie. Although some aspects only losely work, overall the movie not only manages to roughly tackle Vietnam, but feature some inspired, well made moments. This is also probably the most action packed movie Romero ever made, or at least out of the ones I've seen. Which really isn't a bad thing. The characters are quite sketchy, but with Romero its all about the big picture, anyways.

Similar scenario to Romero's own NoTLD, but rather than being about an isolated group of survivors, it's more about the coordinated (but impotent) government and military response with a story of a few survivors interspersed. It's rather frantically edited and clips along at a respectable pace, but some of the action is laughably unconvincing. Definitely a film more about genre styling than technical skill or intelligent screenwriting. Fun if not as good as other Romero I've seen.

56.500

I love the fuck out of this movie, warts and all. The significant weak point is that all the characters are weak, but that's mostly a byproduct of the large scope of the movie with its extremely small budget. The Crazies is at its best when it goes macro, examining the situation and the ways it plays out, rather than when it goes micro and lingers with its group of survivors. The opening scene is incredible, and I do wish we got more snippets of the virus taking hold in domestic situations

This wasn't so bad for a low budgeted movie as Romero seems to do well with these kind of things early on in his career. This seemed like a slow paced action flick rather than a horror movie. The acting was very well done which was alos a surprise for me. Not a bad movie and I would recommend this to people.

The opening scene is one of Romero's most intense and terrifying, but I had a hard time keeping with this one through a lot of it's running time. Just didn't hold my attention that well. It's got moments though and is at least worth a watch for anyone, not just completists

An interesting idea, but poorly executed. Marred by absolutely dreadful pacing.

Richard France was to early Romero as Joe Silver was to early Cronenberg.

Terribly boring and poorly acted. Doesn't compare to any of Romero's great films, big waste of time.

I seen this after i seen the new one in 2009. The new one is way better. This is pretty boring. But i had to watch it when i seen Romero directed to bad it was not that good.

It was fine. The military / science team bungling was interesting. I wish they just stuck with that the whole way through.

Passes the time.

57.000

Could have been so much better.

Not one of Romero's better, but fascinating in all its imperfection.

Some chilling moments but mainly it's derivative, hopped-up action moviemaking.

The idea seems really good but it's dull and boring now that we have movies just like this one. The action wasn't well played out either.