A military plane crashes in the mountains near Evan's City, Pennsylvania. It's deadly cargo, a bacteriological weapon named "trixie" is released into the towns water supply. Soon the residents are dying, or turning incurably, violently, mad.
A small group of civilians tries to escape death at the hands of either infected fellow civilians, or trigger-happy soldiers, as the military quarantine's the town and begins rounding up its people. Meanwhile the military blunders its way through a failed containment of a man-made disaster they created.
The Crazies is the original version of the 2010 remake. While the remake was not completely true to the storyline of the original, the over-all plot remains basically the same as does the underlying social commentary about war, the military, biological/bacteriological weapons, etc.
Of course the original had a budget of around $250,000 as opposed to the $20,000,000 of the remake - a fairly significant difference which is pretty noticeably in terms of production quality, makeup, special effects, costume and basically every other aspect of the film.
But The Crazies is still a thoroughly enjoyable film despite its small budget and other limitations. It holds true to the hallmark of George A. Romero's other films: horror, gore, and politics. It's only a shame that until the release of the recent, excellent, remake, this original film had nearly faded into the unknown. Hopefully the remake will encourage more horror and sci-fi fans to hunt down a copy of the 1973 film and give it a well deserved viewing.
4.5 gas masks out of 5
Unrated: contains violence, gore, nudity, language.
Watch The Crazies trailer.
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