History Film / TheCrazies

* DistressedDamsel: Any time David leaves Judy alone for more than two minutes, she ends up facing a crazy and needing rescuing.

* ActorAllusion: The way Olyphant shoves the Crazy with the metal grate in the truck stop is an identical shot of him doing the same to a rival hitman in the ''Film/{{Hitman}}'' film.
** Let's not forget that he, [[Series/{{Deadwood}} once again, plays a sheriff.]]

* FakeAmerican: Joe Anderson (Russell) and Radha Mitchell (Judy) are English and Australian respectively. Both have fairly strong accents as evidenced by the behind-the-scenes DVD material.

Despite failing at the box office and getting mixed reviews, the movie gained a huge cult following. It's influence managed to get a remake in 2010; the town is set in Iowa with David and Judy now working as a sheriff and a doctor respectively as they still try to escape their town while avoiding the military and "The Crazies".

'''Col. Peckhem:''' [[SeenItAll "Nothing astonishes me anymore."]]

* PoorCommunicationKills: A literal version of this trope; the officer originally sent to deal with the crashed plane isn't told he's dealing with a bioweapon. The crisis team has to communicate through a voiceprint security system that delays communication. The media blackout means that the townspeople end up fighting the military, because they don't understand what's happening or that they shoudn't drink the water. Dr Watts rushes out without telling the technician working with him how he found the cure.

A 1973 horror movie by GeorgeARomero. A small town in Pennsylvania suffers from a string of violent attacks, ranging from beatdowns to arson. Firefighter David and his pregnant wife Judy are thrust into all this and to top it off, the military quarantine the town with orders to shoot anybody that escapes, regardless of being infected or not. David and Judy must try their damnedest to escape before the infected or the military get them.

A 1973 horror movie by GeorgeRomero. A small town in Pennsylvania suffers from a string of violent attacks, ranging from beatdowns to arson. Firefighter David and his pregnant wife Judy are thrust into all this and to top it off, the military quarantine the town with orders to shoot anybody that escapes, regardless of being infected or not. David and Judy must try their damnedest to escape before the infected or the military get them.

A 1973 horror movie by George A. Romero. A small town in Pennsylvania suffers from a string of violent attacks, ranging from beatdowns to arson. Firefighter David and his pregnant wife Judy are thrust into all this and to top it off, the military quarantine the town with orders to shoot anybody that escapes, regardless of being infected or not. David and Judy must try their damnedest to escape before the infected or the military get them.

A 1973 horror movie by George A. Romero. A small town in Pennsylvania suffers from a string of violent attacks, ranging from beatdowns to arson. Firefighter David and his pregnant wife Judy are thrust into all this and to top it off, the military quarantine the town with orders to shoot anybody that escapes, regardless of being infected or not. David and Judy try their damnedest to survive the infected townsfolk and escape.

Despite failing at the box office and getting mixed reviews, the movie gained a huge cult following. It's influence managed to get a remake in 2010; the town is set in Iowa with David and Judy now working as a sheriff and a doctor respectively as they still try to escape their town and avoid the military and "The Crazies".

Remake of the 1973 George Romero movie of the same name. What starts as a series of bizarre behaviors in a small Iowa farming town expands into something much bigger, as the townspeople become psychotic, and the military appears to clean up the mess. Enter the sheriff, his deputy, the sheriff's pregnant doctor wife and a scant few others, in a desperate attempt to leave town, and with it, "The Crazies".

!! 2010 Provides Examples Of:

** Let's not forget that he, [[{{Deadwood}} once again, plays a sheriff.]]

----
!!1973 Provides Examples Of:
* ComeBackToBedHoney: David and Judy. "You ignore the fire signal and I'll ignore the ringing phone."
* DressingAsTheEnemy: David tries this but it backfires, causing Judy to flee in panic; then David is attacked by townspeople thinking he's a soldier [[spoiler:and Judy gets shot.]]
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Dr Watts is killed and the cure smashed in a fight between soldiers (who assume Watts is infected and try to force him into a quarantined area) and the infected. Trixie had already spread beyond the town before the events of the film and infected a city. The one character who is immune keeps silent about it out of spite.]]
* EnemyChatter: Exchanged between GasMaskMooks in several scenes.
* EvilArmy: Played straight from the view of the townspeople. Subverted by showing {{Reasonable Authority Figure}}s acting under conditions of great stress, limited time, information and resources, and idiotic restrictions from higher authority.
* FamousLastWords: Subverted with Kathy who just gives a quiet "Oh" after being shot.
* GunStruggle: The first indication that things are starting to go pear-shaped. The town sheriff resists being forcibly disarmed by the military, and ends up being fatally shot.
* HeroicSacrifice: Clank realises he's infected and draws off the soldiers chasing his friends.
* HeyItsThatGuy: The original features a couple of actors who would appear in later Romero films. Richard France (Dr. Watts) plays another doctor on a talk show in ''Film/DawnOfTheDead'', and Richard Liberty (Artie) is Dr. Logan in ''Film/DayOfTheDead''.
* IdiotBall: The security restrictions hamper any attempt to deal with the crisis effectively. The top scientist on the Trixie project is sent into the town to do a job that any lab technician could do, then he's not allowed to send blood samples out of the city due to the quarantine.
* InvisiblePresident: Only the back of the President's head is seen, made all the stranger by having him only appear on a VideoPhone screen.
* TheImmune: [[spoiler:David. Too bad he's the only person in town they never test for immunity, and is too angry over what's happened to tell them.]]
* ImprobableWeaponUser: The infected old lady who stabs a soldier with her knitting needles.
* ManOnFire: One of the soldiers burning bodies goes crazy. He gets torched with a flamethrower. Also a priest goes mad and [[RuleOfSymbolism imitates a certain Buddhist monk]].
* ModestyBedsheet: Averted -- well it was TheSeventies!
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Artie after realising he's had sex with his own daughter. He goes and [[DrivenToSuicide hangs himself]] (assuming Clank didn't kill him).
* NukeEm: A SAC bomber is kept on permanent patrol above the town, [[spoiler:though it's never actually used.]]
* PapaWolf: Subverted. Artie is too scared to protect his daughter Kathy effectively, and ends up going crazy and [[ParentalIncest having sex with her]].
* PleaseWakeUp: In the opening scene.
* {{Plunder}}: Several soldiers are shown stealing abandoned property and, in one scene, [[EvilArmy stripping the dead of their valuables before burning the bodies]].
* PoorCommunicationKills: A literal version of this trope; the officer originally sent to deal with the crashed plane isn't told he's dealing with a bioweapon. The crisis team has to communicate through a voiceprint security system that delays communication. The media blackout means that the townspeople end up fighting the military, because they don't understand what's happening or that they shoudn't drink the water. Dr Watts rushes out without telling the technician working with him how he found the cure.
* RedShirtArmy: Justified; the soldiers are wearing white {{Hazmat Suit}}s that restrict their vision and makes them stand out in the woods. They're also rear echelon troops (from a chemical warfare unit) fighting Clank, a Vietnam veteran.
* [[SamusIsAGirl Samus is Black]]: Although the audience already knows it, the sheriff and mayor are visibly startled when Colonel Peckhem first removes his gasmask.
* SoundtrackDissonance
* StepfordSmiler: One of the symptoms.
* TriggerHappy: Clank after becoming infected. Not the soldiers contrary to what some viewers think; they lose several people trying to talk armed civilians into putting down their weapons.
* VideoPhone: A video link is set up with the President of the United States so he can, if required, authorize the use of nuclear weapons to contain the virus. However, as the President spends the entire conversation [[InvisiblePresident sitting with his back to the camera]], one wonders why George Romero didn't just have him talking over a telephone speaker.
* YourHeadAsplode: Happens to a [[GasMaskMooks Gas Masked Mook]], despite being shot by the notoriously-underpowered .30 Carbine round.

** Played with in the 2010 remake in that the grunts [[spoiler:have been lied to -- they were told that everyone was infected regardless of appearance]], and it's ambiguous as to whether the burned civilians they find in the end are due to them becoming infected or not. In addition, they only burned corpses - the only person who sets anyone on fire is David.
*** That's if you over look the fact that they found hundreds of gun shells on the ground implying mass murder. They clearly murdered the uninfected.

* ZombieInfectee: [[spoiler:Russell.]] He temporarily snaps out of it to give the protagonists a fighting chance.

* CanYouHearMeNow: The cell phone signal goes down as the virus starts to spread. At least here there is some explanation, seeing as the military likely cut off phone connection in the town.

[[caption-width-right:300:[[BlatantLies The friendliest place on earth]]]]

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: See NotUsingTheZedWord. While the insanity virus sounds similar to that of ''[[TwentyEightDaysLater 28 Days Later]]'''s rage-filled zombies, the victims of this virus retain both their intelligence and their personality - usually.

!! 2010 remake

!! 1973 movie

* PapaWolf: Brutally subverted. Artie is too scared to protect his daughter Kathy effectively, and ends up going crazy and [[ParentalIncest having sex with her]].

* ActorAllusion: The way Olyphant shoves the Crazy with the metal grate in the truck stop is an identical shot of him doing the same to a rival hitman in the {{Hitman}} film.

* HeyItsThatGuy: The original features a couple of actors who would appear in later Romero films. Richard France (Dr. Watts) plays another doctor on a talk show in ''DawnOfTheDead'', and Richard Liberty (Artie) is Dr. Logan in ''DayOfTheDead''.

* HeyItsThatGuy:
** [[Film/AcrosstheUniverse Max]] is the deputy? [[spoiler:Vietnam messed him up pretty badly]].
** Looks like [[{{Justified}} Raylan Givens]] works in Iowa as well as Kentucky.
** Glenn Morshower (AKA [[TwentyFour Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce]] AKA [[ModernWarfare Overlord]]) appears briefly as the Government agent in the black SUV. He manages to reveal a couple of factors [[spoiler: before Russell shoots him.]]

* ManOnFire: One of the soldiers burning bodies goes crazy. He gets torched with a flamethrower. Also a priest goes mad and [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical imitates a certain Buddhist monk]].

* {{Narm}}: Justified as the actors concerned are playing crazy people.

** [[Film/AcrosstheUniverse Max]] is the deputy? I guess [[spoiler:Vietnam messed him up pretty badly]].

* DistressedDamsel: Any time David leaves Judy alone for more than two minutes, she ends up facing a crazy and needing rescuing. Yet David never thinks to stop leaving her by herself or give her a pistol to defend herself. Even when she does finally get a pistol, it's clear she doesn't know how to use it and does nothing while David fights a crazy alone. You'd think the sheriff would make sure his wife had basic firearm training.