Film Review

The Crazies

By: Paul Sawchuk

Posted: 3/16/10

A near perfect horror film like this comes around so rarely that it is easy to lose faith in the genre itself; George Romero is usually behind these flashes of brilliance because he understands what scares us the most: order turned to chaos.
The Crazies does not vary much from the other recent zombie films in terms of pacing and scares; its strength comes from its commentary, courtesy of Romero and the 1973 original.
David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), Sheriff of Ogden Marsh, a good ole' wholesome American town, is enjoying a local High School baseball game with the rest of the town, when another local walks onto the field with a loaded shotgun and no sign that he's not going to use it. Dutton, for the protection of the innocent around him, kills the man, thinking that he's drunk and ready to kill.
Soon this "drunk" theory is debunked and other town members start showing signs of being not all there. The military steps in to provide "containment" for the virus raging through people, but their failure is evidenced by their inability to communicate to anyone what is happening or to "contain" anything at all. Later in the film, it's suggested that the military is largely responsible for the raging townsfolk.
What is so great about a horror movie like this is not only that it makes you think, but it provides many different readings; class/cultural/political divides in America, military responsibility, chaos vs. order and the boundaries of the law. Promoting no specific way to interpret the events in the film, The Crazies still suggests that the dichotomy of order and chaos is the driving force, leaving enough room for interpretation. The scariest part of this is how the filmmakers use the middle ground of order and chaos as the basis of their monsters.
Let's be clear, The Crazies is not a zombie movie. Zombies are rampant killers with no consciousness and their only modus operandi is an incurable blood lust. The people in this film know what they're doing; they cleverly distract the people they're after and at times are consciously aware of why they're doing it. These people are still people, and that makes the questions of the military's treatment of the un-infected all the more problematic.
Indeed, given the somewhat paternal nature of the relationship between the military and "the crazies" it creates an apt metaphor: "the crazies" are indeed the perfect representation for the military machine, at least in the eyes of the filmmakers.
This is scary. Even though they kill people at "random" there is usually a sick self-justification for what they are doing, and this does not only apply to "the crazies". It is this kind of narrative, along with the conventional hero's journey at play, that drives The Crazies beyond the traditional zombie film.
The Crazies is that rare genre film that allows itself to use a traditional form to tell a traditional story in a traditional way but still be somewhat relevant. It has its cheap scares, its faux-scary music and tone, but it's not too over the top. It's violent without being too gory and never forgets that it's a social commentary horror; it can't lose its message to its aesthetics. It's the afterthought that stays with you, mulling over in your head to make you realize, "something like this isn't entirely implausible".
- Paul Sawchuk