The Crazies

press release:

USA | 1973 | DCP | 103 min.

Director: George A. Romero

Cast: Lane Carroll, W.G. McMillan, Lynn Lowry

As a small town is accidentally exposed to a biological weapon that turns people into homicidal maniacs, an unprepared U.S Army swoops in to quarantine and control the damage. Mixing elements of his Night of the Living Dead with The Andromeda Strain, Dr. Strangelove and M*A*S*H, Romero’s breakneck-paced, full-color, bleakly comic sci-fi thriller doubles down on both social commentary and political satire as well as fast-cut editing that was to become his stylistic calling card.

Jonathan Demme & George Romero: Heroes of Cinema

With four screenings this fall, we will commemorate the careers of two remarkable and enormously influential directors who passed away in 2017. Jonathan Demme (1944-2017), known for his energized, music loving and often humanistic body of work, will be represented by his totally unpredictable 1986 screwball comedy Something Wild and his revered 1984 Talking Heads concert movie, Stop Making Sense. George A. Romero (1940-2017) announced his arrival on the movie scene in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead, the first in his hugely popular cycle of flesh-eating zombie horror satires and a movie that launched an entire sub-genre in entertainment. Often shown in inferior copies, a glorious new restoration of Night of the Living Dead will be shown, along with Romero’s fun variation on his zombie cycle from 1973, The Crazies.

All Cinematheque screenings are free and open to the public.