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The Crazies

The Crazies is a 1973 film from the USA, directed by George A. Romero, running 103 minutes. reelscum files it under zombie.

Poster for The Crazies
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Year
1973 · 1970s films
Country
USA
Runtime
103 min
Updated
10 Aug 2026
Obscurity
known (25/100)
Also known as
Code Name: Trixie · Crazies

Defined in the glossary: Zombie

A military bioweapon drives a town homicidally insane. Romero on institutional failure, again.

Romero between Night and Dawn of the Dead, applying his outbreak template to a manmade disaster. A military biological weapon contaminates a Pennsylvania town's water supply, driving residents violently insane, and the army's containment response proves as lethal and incompetent as the plague itself.

It is angrier and more overtly political than his zombie films, focused on institutional breakdown and the body count of the cover-up. Rough around the edges but bleak, and remade in 2010.

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Filed alongside

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Poster for White Zombie

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Obscurity: known. watchable legally

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Poster for Cemetery Man

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Obscurity: known. watchable legally

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Poster for Zombi 2

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Obscurity: known. watchable legally. banned somewhere

A zombie fights a shark. Fulci's splinter shot is still the worst thing here.

Poster for Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

1974 · Spain/Italy · 92m
Obscurity: known. watchable legally. banned somewhere

Spanish-Italian, shot in England, and much smarter than its stablemates.

Poster for Tombs of the Blind Dead

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1972 · Spain/Portugal · 101m
Obscurity: cult. watchable legally

Eyeless Templars on skeletal horses in slow motion. Best monster design of the 70s.

Poster for Day of the Dead

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1985 · USA · 100m
Obscurity: canon. watchable legally

The bleakest Romero. Bub is the only sympathetic character in it.

Poster for Dawn of the Dead

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1978 · USA/Italy · 126m
Obscurity: canon. watchable legally. banned somewhere

A shopping mall, four survivors, and Savini's finest hour.

Poster for The Grapes of Death

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1978 · France · 87m
Obscurity: cult. watchable legally

Rollin does an outbreak. A pesticide turns wine-country villagers into oozing killers.