The Crazies (1973)

This combination sci-fi paranoia film and bloody shoot 'em-up actioner was not the success that George A. Romero and company expected after Night of the Living Dead. It is, however, a well-made, fast-paced thriller that delivers the goods. With its threatening safe-suited soldiers in their Halloween gasmasks and an apocalyptic air of violence and madness, The Crazies serves as a virtual ode to paranoia, taking concepts later seen in Rabid and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial to frightening extremes. Needless scenes of the soldiers looting the corpses before burning them can be forgiven as Vietnam-era pandering, but otherwise, Romero remains remarkably even-handed. There are plenty of gunfights and gore, though, as a sweet old lady hacks a soldier to death with a knitting needle and Romero indulges in his penchant for blood-spurting head wounds twice in the same scene. In structure, this film most resembles Romero's later Day of the Dead (also with Liberty) -- bickering soldiers, scientists racing for a cure, put-upon heroes fighting lunacy -- but this one is much more kinetic and exciting, disproving the frequent charges that Romero knows nothing about action scenes. A surprising, neglected treat. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide