How about the soldiers who gun down unarmed civilians, rob homes of the people they round up for quarantine, and blindly follow stupid, ill-informed orders? What about the scientists who created such a virus in the first place? Meanwhile, the Washington bureaucrats are more concerned with cover ups and willing to drop a nuclear bomb on one of their own towns.
At every level, military, medical, or civilian, people behave in irrational ways that could be virus-induced or perfectly understandable responses to an extremely emotional and dangerous situation. With The Crazies, Romero's approach is more psychological than his zombie movies. There's no shortage of blood and violence in this film, but the sense of dread stems from not knowing who might be infected and being caught up in a world falling apart.
Romero made The Crazies a few years after Night of the Living Dead and a few years before Dawn of the Dead. There is a thematic overlap among the movies, and The Crazies feels like it could be a dry run for Dawn. The scope has expanded from the confined setting of Night as we follow a small group of survivors (in both The Crazies and Dawn of the Dead, there is a pregnant woman among them) as they flee and try to steer clear of the infected, government forces, roving militia, and any other threats while succumbing to infection themselves. It's overly simplistic to describe The Crazies as Dawn of the Dead without zombies, but it's not too far off the mark.
The Crazies has a frantic, urgent tone as one bad thing snowballs into another, and the bodies pile up. The soldiers, anonymous and faceless in their gas masks and biohazard suits, storm homes, clubs, bedrooms, farms, churches, and other supposed safe places. Notions of due process, right to privacy, and respect for private property are tossed out the window in an instant. Those who are resist are designated enemy combatants and shot, their bodies incinerated. Freedom is fragile, always at risk of being snuffed out.
Arriving in the waning years of the Vietnam War, The Crazies captures the zeitgeist of a society breaking down. The government can't be trusted, the military can't defeat an enemy it can't distinguish from civilians, and the people are rioting in the streets. Romero throws in unsettling images that evoke the period, including a priest who self-immolates in protest. When soldiers gun down civilians, it's hard not to note the similarities with the Kent State shootings just a few years prior. Meanwhile, our leads include a pair of Vietnam combat vets, who know the terrain better than the occupying soldiers and whose experience with guerilla warfare gives them an advantage.
The movie is rough around the edges. Several times, it's clear Romero's ambition exceeds his budget, and some of the effects, staging, and editing come off as cheap and amateurish. But that is not always a hinderance. Throughout the film, there is an immediate rawness, similar to what Romero captured in Night of the Living Dead. It doesn't feel clean or polished, but it generates a real urgency. At times, it feels like we're at ground level for the apocalypse.
Of course, being a Romero film, there are elements of dark humor amidst the turmoil. In one scene, soldiers engage in a firefight with civilians armed with farm tools and dynamite. As the civilians drive back the soldiers, a dutiful housewife follows with a broom, sweeping the field. This kind of stuff is funny but also unsettling. We laugh in spite of ourselves at the absurdity of the image.
The Crazies represents an important steppingstone for Romero. After Night of the Living Dead, he made several movies that didn't match his debut's success. It wouldn't be until Dawn of the Dead that he found similar box success traction, but with The Crazies, he demonstrated he was trending in the right direction.
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