Master of Horror | 31 Nights of Horror

For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Night 5 prompt is Master of Horror. We watched the movie The Crazies (1973) on Amazon Prime.

Storyline

The military attempts to contain a man-made combat virus that causes death and permanent insanity in those infected, as it overtakes a small Pennsylvania town.

A biological weapon gone awry is only the start of problems in the little town of Evan’s City, Pennsylvania. Bouts of insanity in the populace are leading to murder and rioting, until the US Army turns up – and things really start going to hell

Our thoughts on The Crazies (1973)

3 out of 10 stars

More snare drums than Metallica’s Lars on St. Anger. Why?

Romero’s terrible attempt protest picture dates pretty badly, and suffers severely from comparison with his other films. A few effective moments, but on the whole a rather strained (and awfully heavy-handed) mess…it doesn’t work without characters to sympathize with, and the lead characters are utter blanks, while the other characters are totally anonymous. So instead it’s standard early 70’s “soldiers are pigs” ranting, with briefs spots of graphic violence. Best forgotten.

Trivia

No Hollywood stunt men were used in The Crazies (1973). Local firemen and licensed fireworks professionals handled all of the action sequences, including the creation and employment of blood squibs.

Filmed in Evans City and Connoquenessing Pennsylvania. Many of the movie’s bit players were locals; several of the white-suited soldiers were actually high-school students.

The budget for The Crazies (1973) was approximately $270,000, and it was George A. Romero‘s first Union film. He also employed a lot of actors from Pittsburgh and non-professionals from Evans City and Zelienople.

A lot of the audio mixing in The Crazies (1973), particularly the voices of soldiers and extras and specific sound effects, were completed in post-production in the basement of George A. Romero‘s Latent Image Studio.

George A. Romero: Two cameos in the film; the first as a local being herded into the high school and the second as the head of the president of the United States seen on a monitor screen.

The burning house at the beginning of the film was a bit of serendipity for the film’s crew. The local fire department was burning down an old house to practice putting out the fire, and they agreed to let the filmmakers set up and film the event.

So what do you think? How many of these scary movies have you seen? Do you have any others to add to the list? Let us know in the comments section and please consider joining our Facebook page, Scary Movies at the Fort. Each October we host the 31 Nights of Horror. Check us out.

Also, be sure to check out our Complete List of Dracula, Frankenstien, Wolfman, and The Mummy, and Universal Monster Movies.

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