The Crazies (1973)

The Crazies (1973)

Country: USA

Director: George A. Romero

Main Stars: Lane Carroll, Will MacMillan, Harold Wayne Jones, Lynn Lowry

Storyline: The army tries to contain a man made virus which drives people mad.

Review (Spoils): A biochemical accident leads to chaos as people that have been in contact with the virus have gone insane. We have plot’s of people in chaos and the higher power people trying to control it. The main focus is on two firemen and nurse who is a pregnant girlfriend of one of them.

This film was the army trying to quarantine the people and then the madness hits every so often. We have gunshots, knitting needles, burning buildings, burning priests, blood, and rape (in a deranged way). This film is the beginning which influenced such films as [REC] and Quarantine and you can see why. I love that the army dubbed the virus infected people as the Crazies. George A. Romero took a step away from the zombies and worked on the Crazies storyline. Much like his other films he brings in the gore and the creepy and disturbing ideas which he is known for. This film is cheaply made but a classic in its own as some of the topics are real and believable.

Rating: Not as classic as his Night of the Living Dead series this film gets shadowed unfortunately and this is not the only little horror gem that George A. Romero has done. If you think you’re a horror fan and have not seen this then it is worth taken a look and enjoying.

6/10 Beers!

Yacker

They Came from Within / Shivers (1975)

They Came from Within / Shivers (1975)

Country: Canada

Director: David Cronenberg

Main Stars: Paul Hampton, Joe Silver, Lynn Lowry, Barbara Steele, Susan Petrie

Storyline: An apartment building gets infected by a parasite that turns people into mindless sex fiends.

Review (Spoils): A scientist lives in large apartment complex in Montreal which he murders a young girl, strips her, cuts her open and uses acid to burn out her internal organs then finally slitting his own throat. This all leads to a strange investigation which brings to the truth of experiments using parasites as organ transplants. This parasite escapes and starts to infect resident by resident turning them into sex crazed zombies.

This strange film does bring out the red as we have throat slitting, a nasty opening of a body, lot’s of vomit of blood, strange parasites and the classic bath tub scene with Barbara Steel. This parasite is the cause of zombie like sex orgy and everyone should run in fear. Some of the special effects are actually pretty decent and the storyline itself is touching the symbolism of sexual transmitted diseases. Remember this film is from 1975 so this was before the actual awareness of such disease such as A.I.D.S.

Rating: This is the first if not one of the first films from David Cronenberg. The film follows the pace of his other later films but this one stands out as it is a strange piece of art. The topic is buried in the movie but it is not hard to see what his point was. The movie can move a little slow at times but to be honest the more I think about the film the more it makes sense. I’m personally not a huge fan of David Cronenberg but this one I do get.

6/10 Beers!

Yacker