The Crazies (1973 / 2010)
THE CRAZIES (aka CODE NAME:
TRIXIE)Â (18)
D: George A. Romero
Pittsburgh Films (A.C. Croft)
USA 🇺🇸 1973
99 mins
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Horror
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W: George A. Romero & Paul McCollough Â
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DP: S. William Hinzman
Ed: George A. Romero
Mus: Bruce Roberts
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Lane Carroll (Judy), Will MacMillan (David), Harold Wayne
Jones (Clank), Lloyd Hollar (Col. Peckem), Lynn Lowry (Kathy), Richard Liberty (Artie), Richard France (Dr. Watts)
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George Romero's follow up to Night Of The Living Dead is
typical B-movie stuff with a decent story but rather messily executed.
An outbreak of a manmade virus in a small Pennsylvania town
turns all the townsfolk crazy, cue the army to quarantine the area and contain the population by marshal law, leading to a rebellion from the people which inevitably becomes chaotic lawlessness
and mania.
The performances and dialogue are incredibly poor, certainly
not helped by fuzzy sound recording, choppy editing and questionable stock footage.
For its age and meagre budget it's not awful, but a huge step
down from Romero's seminal debut.
5/10
THE CRAZIESÂ (15)
D: Breck Eisner
Overture/Participant Media (Michael Aguilar, Dean
Georgaris & Rob Cowan)
USA 🇺🇸 2010
98 mins
Horror
W: Scott Kosar & Ray Wright [based on a screenplay by
George A. Romero & Paul McCollough]
DP: Maxime Alexandre
Ed: Billy Fox
Mus: Mark Isham
Timothy Olyphant (David Dutten), Radha Mitchell (Judy
Dutten), Joe Anderson (Russell Clank), Christie Lynn Smith (Deardra Farnum)
Update of the 1973 film which relocates the action to a
small Iowa community and benefits from having an increased budget. It doesn't explain itself as well as the original film, so if you haven't seen Romero's version you'll probably wonder what
the hell is going on. For the first hour or so it's still quite faithful to the original film before it begins to settle on a half-arsed zombie flick which pretty much falls apart after the
ludicrous "car wash scene".
The only improvement on the first film is that the
characters have surnames.
4/10
