George Romero's The Crazies- A Low Budget Horror Gem

       George Romero’s The Crazies (also called Codename: Trixie) is a nearly forgotten little low budget gem from the 1970s. I’m sure that there will be ton of film buff lunatics who went into a frenzy when I said nearly forgotten, but it is true. Most people have forgotten this little film, and it certainly has been lost in the shuffle, filmed as it was between his much bigger hits Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.

The film follows two stories, one about the civilians trying to stay alive during the disaster, having to battle both "the crazies" as well as U.S. soldiers ordered to shoot on sight. The other involves the political and military leaders trying to contain the epidemic.

Richard Liberty (Clank) & Will MacMillian (David)

Set in the small town of Evans City, Pennsylvania, the central characters are firefighter David, his girlfriend Judy, and firefighter Clank. David was a Green Beret and Clank an infantryman, both having served in Vietnam. The town has seen a number of violent events, including arson at a local farm by a demented farmer. Judy and David are very concerned, since Judy is pregnant.

Meanwhile, heavily armed U.S. troops in NBC suits and gas masks, arrive in town, led by Major Ryder, who takes over the doctor's office where Judy works. Days earlier, an Army plane carrying an untested bioweapon crash-landed in the hills near the town, infecting the water supply with a virus code-named "Trixie," causing victims to either die or become homicidal. "Trixie" is highly contagious, with anyone drinking from the Evans City reservoir becoming affected. In Washington D.C., government officials order Colonel Peckem to go to Evans City to help contain the virus, while scientist Dr. Watts, arrives to develop a cure before the virus spreads beyond the small town.

The film is in itself a comedy of errors. We see mistake after mistake made by the government forces attempting to deal with the crisis, due to the fact of the secrecy surrounding the bio-toxin Trixie. None of the response teams at first are told what it is or that it is infectious. As such, the equipment taken is inadequate. A member of the development team is shipped to the infected city, but is unable to effectively make strides due to all of his notes and files on the virus being left behind. And in fact the scientist finds a cure, but due to communication issues the knowledge is lost.

While certainly low budget the film, does not have that feel. It never stops moving and has an animated frenzied life to it. You can feel the impending dread and taste the paranoia of the actors. In The Crazies, as well as Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead, Romero shows his true genius- his ability to do more with less. It wasn’t until he was handed larger budgets that his films began to feel flat.

The interesting thing about The Crazies is the treatment of the infected. They aren’t transformed into some ravenous monsters hell-bent on destruction, such as in 28 Days Later or I Am Legend, or instant bags of disease such as in Outbreak or The Cassandra Crossing. They literally begin to act odd, reacting to their environment in a bizarre manner. They giggle, they open things that should remain closed, they have difficulty remembering what’s going on. One of my favorite visuals is an infected woman running through a field, being shot by soldiers, carrying a broom and sweep the grass like it was a floor as she ran.

Lynn Lowery (Kathy)

This adds another dimension to the infected as they are fully functional, in a way, the decision to put them down is much more impactful. The element of pathos is much clearer here. These are real people being killed, as opposed to how they are shown in other films.

Some have made the case that this film might well easily be rewritten to show the dead outbreak in the Living Dead series, and I can see that. While The Crazies definitely borrows elements from Night of the Living Dead and adds element that would be later used in Dawn of the Dead, the film is in itself a complete entity.

The entire film is below. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor! 

 

For more weirdness try Across the Wounded Galaxy by Rex Hurst

God Told Me To!- A Film of Space Alien Jesus

            I ran across this little gem back in the old days of VHS tapes. It was at the bottom of a bargain bin at my local record store. The tagline read “The only man alive who can make the choice to help or destroy a mysterious force which has begun to unleash its dread power upon the earth!” A bold statement. Even back then I was lover of obscure films, so I snapped it up and about a week later popped it in (I love films, but also am rather lethargic). I loved it! Sure it had a low budget and was uneven at times, but overall it was a wild weird ride that has stuck with me over the years.

            The film opens with a man on a water tower in New York City firing into the crowded streets below, eventually racking up a kill count of fifteen. The protagonist Peter, a devout Catholic NYPD detective, manages to approach to sniper and they talk. The gunman is perfectly calm and when asked why he’s shooting at people, states that Gold told him to, before jumping off of the tower.

Tony Lo Bianco in God Told Me To

            After that the floodgates open and an entire slew of murders occur, all done by perfectly calm normal people, all claiming that God told them to. Eventually Peter discovers a link. Each of the people had contact with a bizarre underground cult leader by the name of Bernard Phillips.

Peter goes public with the God angle and the city goes into a panic mode, with even more copycat killings occurring. Some of the cult members contact Peter, and a brief meeting between the two occurs, where the detective discovers that the cult leader’s power does not affect him. He also uncovers that a similar set of events took place some 35 years prior.

Now here is where things get weird. His investigation eventually leads him to an old woman who is his birth mother, having found herself impregnated by a strange orb of light while walking home from the New York World’s Fair in 1941, and giving up the child for adoption. He confronts Bernard and discovers the truth - both he and Phillips are the result of "alien abduction/virgin birth by an extraterrestrial (This is beginning to sound more and more like Mormonism). Also here it is alluded to that Heyzeus himself was another such alien birth.

Richard Lynch in God Told Me To

Peter is the result of his human genes being dominant, which is why he is unaware of his true nature, while Bernard is more like their unseen progenitor. Bernard reveals himself to be a hermaphrodite and wishes to spawn a new species with his brother. He further states that all of Peter’s previous attempts at children had died because Peter subconsciously willed them to, but Bernard is strong enough to ward him off. Peter refuses and attacks Bernard, which results in Bernard using his powers to destroy the building and commit suicide. Peter is arrested for murder, and responds to a question as to why he committed the deed with "God told me to”.

Andy Kaufman in God Told me To

            A few other things to mention here. This was the film debut of Andy Kaufman who plays a madman police officer who goes on a shooting spree during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Apparently during the filming, Kaufman, while dressed up in costume, began antagonizing and making insulting gestures to the crowd watching the production. He was so provocative that several of them tried to jump the barricades to beat up Kaufman and had to be held back by the director.

            Additionally the music for the film was originally supposed to be scored by the legendary Bernard Herrman, who was also doing music for Taxi Driver at the time. Apparently Herrman saw the film without music and came up with a few ideas, but died later on that day. The film was dedicated to him. The director then approached another veteran movie composer Miklos Rozsa who refused, stating “God told me not to.”   

Alternate title and poster

            While I love this film, critical opinion is very divided on the idea. In fact Roger Ebert in his book I Hated Hated Hated this Movie only gave it one star. Stating, “there were times when I thought the projectionist was showing the reels in random order, as a quiet joke on the hapless audience. But, no apparently the movie was supposed to be put together in this way, as a sort of fifty-two-card pickup of cinema… As I left the theater, dazed, I saw a crowd across the street. A young man in a straightjacket… was preparing to be suspended in midair hundreds of inches above the ground, and to escape, Houdini style. At the moment he was still standing on the sidewalk- but, believe me, it was still a better show.”

       My suggestion. Watch for yourself and make up your own mind. Caveat Emptor!

                                              The entire film is here.
   For more weirdness try Across the Wounded Galaxy by Rex Hurst

The Turkish Star Wars- The Definition of "So Bad It's Good"

            Where to begin here? The Turkish Star Wars is notorious in some circles for its unauthorized use of Star Wars footage (often it is rear projected while the actors perform in front) and swiping bits from the sound tracks to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Flash Gordon, Ben-Hur, Planet of the Apes, The Black Hole among several others.

            The actual name of the film is Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam translated as “The Man Who Saved the World.” It was made in 1982 on a, presumably, low budget. But due to the very sketchy Turkish laws surrounding copyrights made up for it by stealing all of its space combat scenes from Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica.

            The action sequences are the most laughable scenes. Often our heroes fight large pink furry creatures, obviously inspired from Chewbacca, but they come across more like Gossamer from Looney Tunes. They effortless rip off arms and decapitate them all without shedding blood. Also there are a number of mummy creatures, who look as if they are wrapped in toilet paper, and can kill a man with one flick of the wet end. These also cause our heroes no significant problem.  

            My particular favorite part however has to be the training montage. To prepare for his final battle our hero rips off Rocky and begins exercising to build himself up to superhuman proportions.  He does this by pounding the flats of his palms onto mounds of dirt, punching boulders, and hopping around with rocks tied to his legs. This last exercise allows him the power to bounce off trampolines when the camera angle is low.

No copyright infringement here.

The plot, from what I can tell, follows Murat and Ali, whose spaceships crash on a desert planet following a battle, shown by using footage from Star Wars as well as clips from the space shuttle launch. While hiking across the desert, with absolutely no evidence they guess that the planet is inhabited solely by women. Ali demonstrates the whistles he uses on women. However, he blows the wrong note or something and they are attacked by skeletons on horseback, which they defeat in hand-to-hand combat. The main villain soon shows up and captures the heroes, bringing them to his gladiatorial arena. The villain tells them he is actually from Earth and is a 1,000-year-old wizard. He tried to defeat Earth, but was always repelled by a shield of concentrated human brain molecules (shown as the Death Star). The only way he can bypass this is to use a human brain against it.

The heroes escape by beating everyone up and hide in a cave full of refugees. Murat develops a romantic connection with the only woman there, who looks after the children. (The romance is shown through many long eye-contacts and smiles from the girl, but nothing more. In fact, I don’t believe she has any lines). The wizard’s creatures attack and turn several of the children into monsters, their blood used to renew the evil wizard's immortality. The three then flee the cave and find a local bar, an obvious Mos Eisley Cantina rip off. The two men quickly get into a bar brawl, but the villain suddenly appears and captures them again.

The wizard separates the men and tries to convince them to join him. He sends his queen to seduce Ali, while he orders Murat to be brought before him. He offers Murat the chance to rule over the earth and stars if he joins him. He possesses the power of Earth's ancestry in the form of a golden brain, and all he needs to conquer Earth is a real human brain. After Murat refuses to give up his brain, the wizard shows that he has captured the woman and child. Meanwhile, monsters attack Ali when he is about to kiss the queen. They are both disabled by guards and then unproductively tortured by the wizard. Finally, the wizard pits Murat against a laugh inducing giant monster in the arena. Murat kills the monster and flees, taking the woman and the child with him. Ali is left behind.

Murat finds out about a sword made by the 13th clan, who melted a mountain thousands of "space years" ago to forge the weapon. Murat later finds this sword in a cave defended by two golden ninjas. He gains his light sabre equivalent- a golden sword shaped like a lightning bolt, which is obviously just made from wood and painted gold.  The hero runs around awkwardly with it, touching his enemies and killing them instantly. Murat goes to free his friend from a dungeon. However, Ali becomes envious of the sword, knocks out Murat and takes both the sword and the golden brain. The wizard tricks Ali into giving him the items. Now possessing them, the wizard has increased powers of some kind. He kills Ali and traps Murat, the woman, and the child, who then escape again.  

Murat decides to melt down the golden sword and the golden human brain and forge them into a pair of gauntlets and boots. Equipped with magical gloves and super-jumping boots, he searches for the sorcerer to avenge his friend's death. After fighting monsters and skeletons, he comes face-to-face with his nemesis and karate chops him in half. He then leaves the planet for Earth in the Millennium Falcon.

            The film, as you have read, is astoundingly insane. I first found it on sale (long before Youtube) at a little video store in Buffalo that specialized in out of the ordinary films, and bought it on a whim. Some friends and I sat down, cracked open a few beers (every bad film is made better with beer) and watched. There were no subtitles in my copy, so we made up a plot as we went along, laughing our asses off the whole time. From what I saw it had bad editing, grainy film stock, odd choices of music, laughably cheap props, and amazingly bad action sequences. We had no idea what was happening, but loved every minute of it. Now that’s the definition of so bad its good.

Full film here

For more sci-fi fun try Across the Wounded Galaxy by Rex Hurst