I have yet to read any other online reviews of George Romero's elusive flick The Crazies as recently reissued on DVD by Blue Underground, but I'm sure that the comparisons will or have been made to events taking place in society today. The parallels are truly frightening, and it's definitely true that The Crazies is as important a film today as it was 30 years ago. 30 years? Oh boy, now I feel REALLY old. The themes of martial law, military take over and most of all germ and biological warfare have always been and will always be frightening topics, but are especially frightening today and really do hit home now more than ever.

The premise of The Crazies lies within Evans City, a small town in Pennsylvania (my home state, thank you very much) in which a deadly experimental germ weapon called "Trixie" is accidentally exposed to the town causing quarantine and panic. The effects of the chemical are either a quick death or untreatable insanity. Being that it's quite often difficult to initially diagnose exposure to "Trixe" the military is brought in to round up the entire town (less than 4000 people) at the local high school for diagnosis and hopefully treatment (if an antidote can be found).

In the mean time, a group of locals being transported in a van formulate a plan to escape and hopefully slide past the ever-growing presence of the military in an attempt to get out of town. The group includes a pregnant nurse (Lane Carroll) and her fiancé (Will MacMillan), their friend played by Harold Wayne Jones along with a father and his infected daughter (Richard Liberty and Lynn Lowry). There is a constant and mostly unnerving shift between the action of the military takeover and the escape as a frantic attempt is made to deliver an antidote before the town is to be wiped out by a possible nuclear bombing.

Directed by George Romero, The Crazies sticks very much to his directing style at this point in his career of few long shots and a complicated amount of edits. The quick cutting style helps to keep the frenetic pace of the film, but stands to reinforce Romero's inexperience as a visual filmmaker. Romero is fantastic at relaying frightening stories that remain grounded in reality even if it is without a real visual or cinematic flair. The Crazies gets going pretty much within the first ten minutes of the film and doesn't let loose until the end credits roll. The real beauty of The Crazies (as with most other Romero Films of the time) lies within the fact that he creates a frightening reality that may hit just a little too close to home. A reality that can scare the living shit out of you long after you've sat in a darkened room with the film rolling. The Crazies will stick with you, long after you view it, a feat that is not easy to pull off and that hasn't been duplicated for many years within the current crop of cinematic imitators.

The Crazies features scenes that will burn in the back of your mind including the films opening, in which we get the first glimpse of insanity caused by "Trixie" as a father unleashes his fury on his wife and two young children. The disturbing events continue to unfold as we're given a montage of scenes in which gas mask wearing members of the military break into unsuspecting citizens homes, forcing them out with little to no explanation of what's going on. Seeing the military personnel stealing from the very same people they are supposed to be saving only adds to the most uncomfortable situation at hand. The madness doesn't end here as there is still a barrage of disturbing imagery to intoxicate the viewer including a priest setting himself on fire, a sweet old lady repeatedly stabbing a man with her knitting needle after Trixie has taken hold and a disturbing bit of father daughter incest.

The viewer knows pretty much from the get go where the situation lies within Evans City, unfortunately the citizens being rounded up as well as a good portion of the military do not. The viewer in turn feels helpless as they watch the events unfold and in the world of The Crazies, panic starts to take over not only within the characters, but also the viewer. Romero does an incredible job of creating a mostly claustrophobic atmosphere and in turn, the level of unease in the film, is exceptionally high.

Blue Underground presents The Crazies on DVD in a new 16X9 1.66:1 widescreen transfer and the result is quite breathtaking. There was a previous DVD import of The Crazies available recently and unfortunately I have no knowledge of the quality of that transfer. However, with Blue Underground's transfer there is absolutely nothing to complain about. There is minor evidence of grain (mostly in some darker scenes) and minimal amounts of print damage with some specs and film dirt. Overall, colors are quite solid and vibrant, for a 30-year-old film that was shot for under 300,000 The Crazies looks simply phenomenal here. The film itself still looks like a product of the 70's due to the hairstyles and sets that are used, but still holds up quite well despite this 70's feel. Audio is presented in a very respectable mono track (fairly crisp and clear dialogue) that features no evidence of his, distortion or background noise. There's not much in the way of dynamic range and the audio never really bypasses the films original budgetary limitations, but through it all audio is more than acceptable.

Extras include a very interesting 14-minute interview with actress Lynn Lowry entitled The Cult Film Legacy of Lynn Lowrey. The piece is extremely entertaining as Lynn speaks very frankly on not only The Crazies but also on most of her cult film career. Other extras include 2 trailers and 2 TV spots along with a well-written George Romero Bio. The final extra is a feature length audio commentary provided by George Romero, moderated by Blue Underground head honcho William Lustig. The commentary track is quite interesting, even if there are a few spots of slow down, and the two do tend to ramble on just a bit. Still, in the end it's a very interesting listen and well worth the time you'll invest in it.

The Crazies is an exceptionally entertaining and disturbing film that begs to be seen by genre fans that have yet to discover how wonderful it is. A once difficult film to find The Crazies will now have widespread availability and Blue Underground should be very proud of themselves for treating The Crazies with such respect and delivering such an outstanding product. The Crazies is a film NOT to be missed and Blue Underground's recent DVD release comes with my highest recommendation.