PART TWO: Apocalypse!

The Crazies (George Romero, 1970)

Yes, it’s been Romero season round this way recently, although I’ve still yet to catch 'Land of the Dead'. You’re probably fed up with my constant gushing enthusiasm by now, but it has to be said, this film is a fucking masterpiece.

Made the year after 'Night of the Living Dead' with what seems to have been a much larger budget, The Crazies has no zombies as such (hence it’s unjust obscurity I suppose), but nevertheless expands on the previous film’s key themes, exploding them across a far wider canvas of apocalyptic cynicism, chaotic despair and pure cinematic subversion.

Beginning with a pair of children waking in the night to discover their father midway through a self-destructive rampage, it’s swiftly revealed that a rogue strain of an artificial virus designed to propagate full-scale insanity and death has accidentally contaminated the water supply of a small town, and from thereon-in the film never lets up, its 90 minutes remaining fast, unrelenting and brutally precise throughout – the cinematic equivalent of a Slayer song, but with a hell of a lot more to say for itself.

Confused and desperate conferencing between various branches of government trying to deal with the disaster swiftly builds to Dr Strangelove levels of pitch-black irony, and as an army of gas-masked, heavily armed troops with only the vaguest idea of what they’re doing is mobilised to isolate and confine the local populance against their will, it becomes immediately clear that official bungling poses a far greater threat than the virus itself, which is as yet a vague and unseen element which nobody seems to know much about.

Romero’s bitter anger at his government’s contempt for humanity is palpable as we see soldiers throwing terrified women and children out of their homes at gun-point with no word of explanation. Meanwhile, we’re introduced to a few resourceful locals who boast combat experience from Vietnam, want to know what the hell is going on and ain’t gonna take no shit. Into this already tense situation, the virus slowly begins to make its presence felt, as people on both sides start to become hostile and hysterical above and beyond the call of duty, and any thought of keeping control of the situation collapses entirely. Back at HQ, officials nervously discuss the possibility of fatalities, whilst on the ground they’re bringing in flamethrowers to burn the bodies.

Swift cutting between people in dozens of different locations exchanging contradictory information draws the viewer into the same panic experienced by the characters, and as a picture of different events around the town is slowly built up, we find ourselves – as in all the best apocalyptic fiction – completely drawn in, weighing up the chances of the characters desperate plans against the facts as we understand them, rooting for their survival.

The frenzied atmosphere is similar to that created by later outsider horror masterworks such as 'Rabid' and 'Shivers', and good though those films are, it should be noted that one can easily imagine a teenage David Cronenberg sitting gob-smacked in a screening of The Crazies, scribbling down the notes that would launch his career.

The script is excellent, and the characters themselves are well-drawn and empathetic, the acting subtle, convincing and of an extremely high standard for a ‘horror’ film. And, my unceasing admiration for Romero being well-established, I don’t need to tell you that the film-making is fucking spot-on – sharp, effective, intelligent, brutal, powerful and beautiful. More than ever in this film, he tells no lies and pulls no punches; the violence – and there is plenty of it – is shocking and sickening, especially for 1970, although rest assured this isn’t a film that’s going to make comfortable viewing at your next beer-fuelled zombie-fest. As the closest thing the film has to a hero and his pregnant girlfriend slowly abandon their friends to encroaching madness and make a break for the town’s perimeter, the film’s denouement is as devastating as the conclusion to Catch 22.

Once again, a masterpiece. Should you ever feel like talking jive in regard to the relative merits of ‘art’ and ‘genre’ cinema, GO WATCH THIS FUCKING FILM, then get back to me.