The Crazies is a movie that takes place in a small picturesque town in Iowa.Β You know the kind, where everyone is friends with everyone else and innocent banter and gossip are about as bad as things get.Β Well, throw in a biological weapon that changes everyone into bloodthirsty killers on zombie steroids, and the town is transformed into a haven for some gruesome mayhem.
The victims begin by assuming a spaced-out kinda gaze, but as the infection worsens they become increasingly violent.Β Add to that some veins popping out of their faces, glassy evil looking eyes, really gross makeup, and you have a movie that can give you the major heebee-jeebees. These zombified killers are obviously “the crazies” after whom the film is named.
The hero and heroine, the sheriff and his doctor wife, are on the run with some others and dodge their way between the insane populace and the military exterminators who have arrived to contain the outbreak and prevent a pandemic.Β Talk about a really bad day at the office.
The movie has some cussing in it, but it isn’t pervasive.Β It is more “appropriate” given the situations.Β You know, you’d probably say some pretty strong language when you’re in a morgue of bodies and a ghoulish medical examiner appears out of nowhere and tries to cut you up with a bone saw.Β Or how about being strapped down on a table and the ex-school principal arrives with a bloody pitchfork and begins to slowly stab the patients one at a time.Β Right or wrong, I could see some expletives slipping out.Β There are no sex scenes but there is a lot of gore, violence, running, screaming, and enough surprises to jump-start your heart several times.
If you like to be scared by movies that don’t have much of a plot and where character development is an afterthought, then the Crazies might do the trick for you.Β But, honestly, think about this.Β The Bible says, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things,” (Phil. 4:8).Β The Crazies is about as far from that as you can get.
