THE CRAZIES
US, 1973, 103 minutes, Colour.
Lane Carroll, Wayne Mac Millan, Lynn Lowry, Harold Wayne Jones.
Directed by George A. Romero.
The second film by Pittsburgh director George A. Romero. In the late sixties he made a national and international impact with his contemporary vampire thriller, The Night Of The Living Dead. The present film is much more polished in style and presentation than his first film. He continued his offbeat horror films with a contemporary American vampire thriller, Martin - which also satirised vampire stories and conventions. A second part of a possible trilogy with The Night Of The Living Dead was Dawn Of The Dead, in which he collaborated with Italian horror director Dario Argento. Romero has a knowledge of horror techniques and is able to present them graphically to his audiences. He works outside the Hollywood system, being Pittsburgh based. He has a very strong reputation as an independent filmmaker. His particular vision, via horror films, of America is, to say the least, arresting.
1. The quality and impact of the work of George A. Romero? An independent filmmaker? Local film? making standards of production? knowledge of film conventions, impact for audiences? Vision of America? The use of horror for interpreting America?
2. The quality of the production? the strength of the screenplay (using conventions, sending them up, transcending them)? The colour photography, dramatic editing?
3. Audience interest in and involvement in the plot? Knowledge of Living Dead films? nuclear and bacterial accidents? The atmosphere of American cover-up? how well were these elements combined for melodramatic effect and entertainment?
4. The tone of the title? Its description of the infected people? As relevant to the United States? American crises of the seventies? The impact of the film for Americans, non-Americans?
5. The importance of the opening with the build-up of atmosphere and themes: the location of the plot in a Pennsylvania city, the man going berserk, the death of his wife, setting the house on fire, the children burning? The military invading the town? The taking over of the doctor's office? The crash of the plane and the story of the experimental vaccine? The suggestion visually of the vaccine getting into the water supply? The build-up of bizarre and crazy behaviour? The introduction to individuals and groups? transforming of an ordinary American town? The parable about American society and behaviour?
6. The establishing of the picture of the town? its ordinariness and its being transformed by madness? The people being infected? The initial coping with the disaster situation, the fire brigade, the doctor, Judy as nurse? The military? The initial familiarity of crises rising from ordinary situations? The gradual change and people having to cope, survive? Ordinary people being hunted and destroyed like animals?
7. The film's presentation of the accident situation - the vaccine and its going into the water supply with its effect on people? The possibility of countering this with a serum and the lack of serum? The various accidents? Build-up to siege and prison, the cordoning off of the town, the hunting of people to death? The irony of the true nature of the accident? The effects of bacterial warfare? The parallels with nuclear accidents? How persuasive was this message of the film?
8. How effective were the devices to suggest that people were crazy or not? The old man seeming berserk and then peacefully directing the traffic? Kathie and her father? The bizarre details of their behaviour? The father's death? Kathie and her open arms as she is killed? The sheep and her corpse? The doctor and Judy getting the serum? Judy and David hiding? Clank and the reaction to the townspeople? the escape? Clank gradually being taken over by the infection? The clash with the military patrol and his slaughtering them? The snake? His death? Judy and. the audience's emotional response to her being heroine, hoping, that she would not be infected, sympathy for her pregnancy, discovery of her infection, her death? Javid and his survival, his being taken back to the town? ilis future?
9. The doctor and the possibility of helping the town with the serum, his experiments and desperation, his assistant nurse, his dropping the serum, his death in the crowd and the panic?
10. The military leaders and their strategies, discussions, links with the President for decisions? The moving at the end to another crisis and the cover-up? story?
11. The role of the media, the media personalities, the right of the public to know?
12. The nature of madness? People being overtaken by infection from outside, losing their freedom, becoming animals, hunted to death? symbol for the dehumanising of the 20th century?
13. The effectiveness of the film as a contemporary horror story? The social message?
