The Crazies Analysis

The Crazies was made in 2010 and is an American horror film set in the fictional town of Ogden Marsh, Pierce County. It was directed by Breck Eisner and is a remake of the 1973 film of the same name by George A. Romero, who was also the executive producer of the remake. The plot of the films follows David Dutten, his wife Judy and fellow people other their town when their water supply is accidentally infected with the ‘Trixie’ virus after a plane crashes into a lake where the town gets their water supply.  

The first scene of the burning town

The Crazies doesn’t follow Todorov’s Classical Hollywood Narrative Structure. First thing we see is a burning town and we don’t see any people. This draws the audience in and gets the hooked as they will want to know what happened. This is an unusual setting and not the normal equilibrium. The audience sees what is going to happen in the future. We then go to ‘2 days before’ in which we now have the equilibrium of the people of town playing a baseball game. The disruption is when Rory comes onto the baseball pitch with a gun the sheriff (David Dutten) assumes he is drunk as Rory is a recovered alcoholic and the sheriff shoots him and kills him. At the time they do not know that Rory has the virus which is the overall disruption. The recognition is when David, Judy and the deputy, Russell discovers what has happened. There is an attempt to resolve the disruption when David asks the mayor to turn off the water supply. However overall I don’t think that The Crazies follows the Classical Hollywood Narrative, this is because of the scene at the beginning. In addition at the end there isn’t a new equilibrium. We find out that the virus has spread to another town which David and Judy are now going to. They are about to go through the whole thing again which affects the audience as they feel sorry for the characters. There are also 3 important time durations during this film, the screen time is 92 minutes, the plot duration which is 3 days and story duration; this could be years as it is hard to tell how long the government had been creating the virus and also the audience knows Judy is pregnant, this is at least 9 months.

One of 'The Crazies'

When looking at Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory of the binary opposites there are a few in The Crazies. Firstly good vs evil, which is an obvious binary opposite for a horror film genre as it is conventional. The audience can see that David and Judy are the good guys; this is because they want to everything to go back to normal and are trying to survive. The government however could be seen as the evil ones as well as the infected crazies, this is because they are the ones who are killing innocent people and they were the ones to release the virus in the first place. Another binary opposite is past vs present, this is because of the scene at the beginning with everything of fire. This is actually from the middle of the narrative and then we are shown 2 days before this occurred. There are different links made of past and present throughout the film. Another example is when they find the plane which crashed, as the audience we don’t get to see it but it happened 3 weeks before. The idea of this for the audience is for us to make links which include us within the film. Another binary opposite in the film is normal vs strange. The audience can see that there is a clear difference between ‘the crazies’ who are the infected and the normal humans such as David and Judy. The infected cannot think straight and want to kill everyone, which is a strange desire. The normal people are shown as living normally, an example of this is when Judy comes home with David and Russell to collect the care and she is taking down the washing off the washing line. She is trying to make it seem as normal as possible. Another binary opposite is order vs chaos; an example of this is again at the beginning the scene of the burning town then, it swaps to 2 days later when everything is normal and in order. In addition there is also order and chaos in the characters; at the beginning it shows David and Judy. At first you can see the town is very well run, with a sheriff and deputy as well as doctor and nurses however then when the virus spreads people are going wild, killing each other which create the chaos. There are a few more binary opposites in which I think are in this film, these include: sanity vs insanity, healthy vs unhealthy, alive vs dead. All these are to do with ‘The Crazies’ in relation to David, Judy, Russell and Becca.

Deputy (Russell), Sheriff (David),
Judy and Becca

Vladimir Propp identified 8 character roles after looking at over 100 folk tales which include:

Hero – our main protagonist and victor.Villain – the bad character.
Donor – who provides an object or powers to the hero.

Helper – who aids the hero.

Princess – the hero’s ‘reward’ and object of the villain’s scheme.

Princess’s Father – who rewards the hero.

Dispatcher – who sends the hero on his way.

False Hero – the double agent who hinders the hero rather than helping him.
In the terms of The Crazies, it is clear that the hero is David Dutten, who is the sheriff of the town. He rescues his wife when the government takes her away as they think she’s got the virus, he is also alive at the end of the film. The donor and helper is the same character in this film who the deputy, Russell. He is the donor because firstly he gives his life to distract the government so that David and Judy can get away and he is the helper because he saves David’s life 3 times during the film. The princess is Judy, this is because she saves people and also is the reward for the hero in addition she also rewards the hero with a baby. The villain in this film is the US government and army, this is because they are the reason the virus exists and also they kill innocent people who they think have the virus. The villains are also the infected crazies as they do try and kill people, only because they have the virus because of the government. The false hero is the mayor; this is because he refuses to turn off the water. He thinks he is doing this for the good of the town people are they are a farm town who needs the water for crops etc, however he doesn't know that the water is infected.

In relation to ‘The Male Gaze Theory’ by Laura Mulvey I don’t think it plays a big role in this film; even though there were some females in the film, Judy and Becca. The females in this film appear to be smart as they are both doctors. They are not sexually objectified in the film, they are both covered up and in addition Judy is pregnant.

Judy is the final girl in this film, even though she is the ‘princess’ she is the reward for the hero. She doesn’t exactly fit the final girl theory by Carol Clover. This is because as Judy is pregnant the audience can assume she had sex even though we do not see it in the film. However she is smart because she is a doctor.