The Crazies (1973 vs 2010)

Boy, talk about a movie concept that hits different after Covid.

The Crazies (1973) was directed by George A. Romero five years after Night of the Living Dead. Though not strictly speaking a zombie movie, it nevertheless hits on some familiar themes and fits in rather neatly with Romero’s legacy. I think it’s one of his lesser-known and appreciated films, though. I knew about it by way of the remake (we’ll talk about that in a second) and didn’t even know it was a Romero film until I added it to this watchlist.

Which is a real shame, because this film is well worth a watch, if you go in with an open mind.

So: The plotline is that a bioweapon is accidentally unleashed on a small town, and the military rolls in to try to contain it. The illness leads to certain death and, for some people, insanity – sometimes exhibited through violent, irrational behavior.

Or, does it, though?

Because as the story progresses, you see the military botch this mission time and again, and you start to wonder whether the people being exterminated are actuallydangerous harbingers of a deadly disease…or just people responding pretty normally to being herded like cattle and threatened by authority. Oh, sure, a handful of people show clear murderous behavior. But the rest are gray enough that you really start to wonder.

The tone of this movie is, I would say, darkly sardonic. I think it makes a fantastic double-feature with Dr. Strangelove, actually. It’s not as over-the-top funny as Strangelove, but it has the same strong anti-military sentiment and that same undercurrent of bitter anger. Which, I mean…in 1973, I can think of some reasons why folks might be a little bit angry and disillusioned with the military’s ability to make anythingbetter.

The reason I say you need to approach this movie with an open mind is that it’s very 1970s. The soundtrack is all over the place (though not quite as insane as Last House on the Left), the acting kind of jumps between wooden and melodrama, the effects are cheesy. But if you go in prepared to have a good time, I think you will.

The Crazies (2010) is directed by Breck Eisner, who has made nothing else I recognized. Romero executive-produced the film, so it at least had his blessing. I remember watching it when it came out, riding that little zombie bubble that accompanied The Walking Dead, and quite enjoying it at the time. I’m happy to report that the film holds up admirably, although it has a rather different take on the source material.

Once more, this movie is about a bioweapon that turns people murderously insane. But this time, there’s no doubt about it – these folks are definitelysick, definitely crazy, and definitely going to kill you. The dark humor is gone. This movie is a straight-up horror film, tense and legitimately frightening. It combines elements of zombie films, pandemic films, and home invasion movies and manages it pretty successfully.

In Romero’s original, the military is the clear antagonist of the film. Here they serve a more neutral-to-heroic role against the crazies themselves, who are unambiguous threats. Our hero is the town sheriff, desperate to get his pregnant wife to safety as the two make their way through a perilous town.

I will say that both films are tragedies, but in different ways. Romero’s film is a tragedy of the absurd: everything is rendered pointless by the stupidity and malfeasance of the powers that be. Eisner’s film is more of a Greek tragedy: these characters fight valiantly in the face of incredible odds, but ultimately it amounts to nothing because far greater forces have been in motion long before the heroes came on board.

Both are quite good, in their own ways. I think this 2010 remake is more enjoyable as a film. The 1973 movie is a lot of fun as a cultural artifact and perhaps has more interesting things to say about the nature of institutional violence.

Black Christmas 1974 vs 2006

Today, a truly well-made classic horror film…and a forgettable abomination against taste.

Black Christmas (1974), directed by Bob Clark, is a Canadian horror movie and arguably the very first slasher. I say “arguably” because it 1.) came out pretty much exactly the same time as Texas Chain Saw Massacre and 2.) it’s kind of a bridge between Giallo horror and slasher. Here’s an article that sums that up, so I don’t spend a day babbling about it: https://www.ghoulsmagazine.com/articles/12-ghouls-christmas-blackchristmas-1974-giallo-to-slasher

I previously reviewed this film here: https://tlbodine.tumblr.com/tagged/black%20christmas

This is the second time I’ve seen this movie, and I really genuinely do love it. It’s tightly plotted, with all of its elements meticulously foreshadowed and paid off. Its resolution is legitimately chilling, and it succeeds because – despite its ambiguity – the plot’s logic has been so tight that we understand in an instant exactlywhat’s going on…unlike anyone on screen who could actually do something to stop it. Augh. It’s just so good.

Which cannot be said for…

Black Christmas (2006), often shorted as Black X-Mas, was so terrible that I almost felt compelled to apologize to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot by comparison.

The film is directed by Glen Morgan, who you’ll recognize as the guy who remade Willard in 2003. Sadly, despite Willardbeing a favorite film of mine, he just didn’t pull off the same magic with this. I guess part of that is due to executive meddling – Morgan had a lot of issues with the studio execs, Harvey Weinstein in particular (ugh) regarding the film’s tone and ending. There was also a ton of footage filmed for promotional material that was never part of the script or included in the movie.

Anyway. This movie takes the approach of delving deep into Billy’s backstory, so I guess we have to talk about that. Spoilers for a 50-year-old movie incoming.

In the original film, we hear the names “Billy” and “Agnes” come up in the menacing phone calls. It’s not superclear what’s going on with them, but it kind of sounds like the caller is maybe mimicking or re-enacting being yelled at as a child, or some sort of domestic strife in general. It’s mixed in with bits of dialogue and things the caller has overhead in the house itself – like someone will say something in the house, and the caller will reference it later in a creepy way like “Hey was that a coincidence or was he listening to us?”

We know, as the viewer, that the killer is in the sorority house. We see him, in a POV shot, enter in the beginning, and we catch glimpses of him lurking around in the attic. The people *in* the movie think that the killer is actually one of the boyfriends, who we’ve seen acting like a temperamental douche-nozzle.

But the original film never resolves the identity of the killer. You never once figure out who the hell this guy in the attic is, what’s up with those phone calls, why he’s killing people, none of that. Which is, in my mind, a great strength of the original film. It’s much scarier that way and, frankly, we don’t needto know why killers kill people.

Anyway. So with all of that…back to Black X-Mas.

Glen Morgan decided that the way to approach this remake is to center it on the Billy character, aka, the killer. We see him locked up in a high-security mental hospital/prison ward type facility (which also has a fucking stupid little side plot with a santa claus, ugh) and then we get spoon-fed his entire backstory through a series of flashbacks.

Billy’s backstory was apparently loosely inspired by the real-life killer Edmund Kemper. We see this kid abused and neglected by his parents, locked in an attic, then raped by his motherwhen he’s 12 years old in order to produce a daughter for her to spoil and lavish with attention. Yeah. Oh, and don’t worry, just to make things even more obnoxious, when little sister Agnes grows up to be a killer just like her brother-daddy, she’s also cast by a male actor, because what’s scarier than an ugly mannish girl am I right.

/screams into a pillow for several minutes/

ANYWAY.

Aside from that, the rest of the movie is pretty boring. I kept mixing up characters because all of the pretty white girls sound/act/look the same and have no defining personality traits between them. The plot gets tugged along without anyone having any agency or making any choices. A couple of the kills are kind of neat. But its’ overwhelmingly just dumb. We’re supposed to believe that these characters are snowed into the house and unable to escape when there’s like half an inch of snow on the ground!

Supreme stupidity. Do not watch. It’s gross and boring and you too will be unable to get the mental image of Billy’s mom out of your head.

Tune in next time when we watch the otherBlack Christmas remake from 2019, which I’ve heard is also terrible but surely cannot be as terrible as this!