Posts Tagged ‘zombies’
January 23, 2012 | 
Author 
‘The Crazies’ is yet another film that has recently been rebooted with the loving care with which Hollywood treats all classics, so it’s only fair to re-examine the original. We join the scene as the small, isolated community of Evan’s City is suddenly the focus of a massive military-controlled quarantine, and no one will say why. The local nurse and firemen are dragged into the centre of the action but while they struggle to survive, the government has already condemned them: “Trixie” is too experimental a virus, and a plane is lined up to for a nuclear strike.
As with any Romero production, the focus is not necessarily on a believable series of events, but on the way society would react to an unknown biological threat. Tension runs high as the army mercilessly round up the citizens, and the town’s doctor and priest argue desperately for communication channels to open.
A claustrophobic atmosphere reigns as any solution begins to appear hopeless and clueless soldiers struggle to control a frightened population. The military (wearing white overalls and gasmasks) are as threatening as the slowly disintegrating sanity of the populace. Soon chaos reigns and it’s every man for himself. The scene in which the faceless soldiers evacuate family after family from their homes is particularly poignant. No one shows signs of infection at first, but with martial law declared and everyone herded into the local high school hall, disaster can be the only result.
The sheer amount of dialogue can seem a bit hackneyed compared to more modern zombie, horror and action films in general. There is also a lens on the military, as opposed to the melee unfolding in the town. However, we soon discover that the soldiers are not immune either, and simply acting under orders will not protect them. It becomes unclear whether people’s brutality is that of natural fear or the sickness itself. These are no mere zombies: they are people reduced to pure Id, and as the violence increases you wonder who is worse, the infected locals or the ruthless army.
This film has been somewhat lost to history because it isn’t one of Romero’s best, and stands alone as opposed to ‘…The Dead’ franchise, which has been very much kept alive (so to speak). The use of music also dates it, and the implausible gunfight with a helicopter is, well, implausible.
Sadly you can see the ending coming from very early on in the plot, and the endless shootouts and military debates aren’t half as fun as zombie guts flying everywhere – you feel a bit bad for the army, the way they get mercilessly picked off by local gunslingers.
‘The Crazies’ is fun, but there is not as much to relish as in the majority of Romero’s work, so it can all fall a bit flat.
Review by Nicole Holgate
Posted in 1970's, exploitation, Review | 
Tags: 1970's, Crazies The, cult films, cult horror, George A Romero, review, zombies | 
1 Comment »
Beginning with the sight of an unmanned ship drifting intoBoston harbour, this Italian production has gained notoriety for its bizarre use of sound, and slipshod vocal dubbing. Nonetheless in terms of gore it remains one of the greatest examples of the flock of Italian zombie movies produced over the 70s and 80s, a true credit to director Lucio Fulci.
At first we follow Ann, whose scientist father owned the boat and hasn’t been heard from for over a month. An English reporter, Peter, decides to help her get to the tiny island where her father was last living and find out what has happened. It emerges that Ann’s father died of the zombie infection himself, but is it a biological matter or a voodoo curse? The remaining doctor on the island, and his assistant, deal with an increasing number of sick and dying, having learnt that to truly dispose of them, they must be shot in the head. The doctor’s wife, left to her own devices, also meets a grisly fate.
The movie mixes human drama with a steadily increasing amount of zombie gore, and packs a lot into its hour and a half of mostly understated action (and imperfect acting). There is a ‘woman goes scuba diving wearing only a gas tank and string thong’ scene, a stereotypically Italian touch. It’s this mixture of gratuitous topless scenes followed by contemplation that does seem to say something about the human condition. And of course, if you’re starting to get bored, there is the infamous moment where a zombie fights a shark: the shark begins to look quite cute and innocent compared to the decaying zombie.
Add to this a few vague racial slurs in the form of the Westerners’ angry dismissal of the local belief in voodoo and you’ve got a full gamut of racist, sexist, badly dubbed, gory insanity which relentlessly builds to a hideous climax. The film constantly turns up the tension by delivering increasingly horrific shocks. It also adheres closely to the ‘they aint dead til there’s a bullet in they head’ adage which has kept us so well all these years of fighting the undead. So who was right, the locals who seem to simply give up in the face of some kind of greater power at work, or the Westerners who try to understand and combat a disease which must have a natural explanation?
This is all before Romero started slinging his ‘social revolution’ sledgehammer around, and was released as ‘Zombi 2’ in Italy purely because ‘Dawn of the Dead’ had already been released as ‘Zombi’.
The wonderful twist at the end of the film, after a crescendo of fire and gore, paints the same brilliantly bleak picture as many of its genre. But even if you’ve seen them all, this low-budget, iconic work packs in a bit of everything, and even with the horrific sound quality and disjointed dubbed dialogue, has a realistic punch that modern special effects can’t quite capture.
Review by Nicole Holgate
Posted in 1970's, Review | Tags: exploitation, Lucio Fulci, review, Zombi, Zombie Flesh Eaters, zombies | 1 Comment »
