Really Awful Movies

The Crazies is the kale of horror movies. It’s not particularly exciting, but it’s good for you.

Bio-horrors are a terrific social experiment where citizens have to band together to fight off an external force, usually a virus that threatens to kill us all. And to compound matters, communication has broken down, especially between those tasked to protect us, and how they convey said message. Spoiler alert: not very well.

Rounding up people for quarantine, not telling them why, and doing so very violently, doesn’t do much for social cohesion. And there’s an immediate push-back.

Here, a secret bio-warfare weapon (Trixie) is released after a plane crashes in western Pennsylvania. The pathogen is in the water supply, so the government has to prevent its spread by any means necessary. (Including, after a call to the President, the contingency of just nuking the whole place to be done with it. It’s a real life example of what philosophers call The Trolley Problem. Do you kill a bunch of people intentionally, to save a bunch of other people?)

George Romero’s The Crazies follows two stories:

1) Efforts by a stentorian researcher to find a cure, using makeshift conditions of a high school science lab and trying to secure blood samples from the increasingly rabid and sociopathic townies to send back to Maryland for processing, and….

2) survivors/resistors/militia who are trying to escape the clutches of NBC suit-wearing soldiers with shoot-to-kill orders, by fleeing to a neighboring town.

It’s the science part of the tale where things break down, much like the social cohesion and the institutions that are meant to make people safe. It’s simply not as compelling a tale as a survivor’s fight for their very survival.

There’s something undeniably creepy about NBC/Hazmat suits, gas masks and a bunch of men running around doing the unquestioned bidding of higher ups. However, at the end of the day there are serious pacing issues and, despite the inherently interesting survival tale, the survivors themselves are not particularly compelling.

Much like zombie threat movies, they’re forced to close ranks when one among them is thought to have been afflicted.

It’s hard to separate out one’s critical response to The Crazies given when it was released, as these kinds of films have been done to death so often now. But it’s important to start somewhere, in this case 1973.

*** (out of 5)

[CHECK OUT OUR PODCAST OF THE CRAZIES]

One of the great joys of quick-dry cement-headed action flicks like Cage is reveling in a piece of art which couldn’t be made today, especially given how folks are offended by just about everything it seems.

Featuring the Twin Towers Reb Brown and Lou Ferrigno, who’ll kick your teeth in even as you cower in your safe space, Cage is another one of those human cockfighting ring action flicks similar to Bloodsport. However it’s a wagon-load more racist. But have no fear. Nobody comes off well in this.

Reb (Scott) and Lou (Billy) play army buddies fighting over in Vietnam. Billy is seriously injured and airlifted back home, recuperating in a Veterans hospital. Scott helps him recover from his injuries and eventually, both of them are working honest-to-goodness blue collar jobs tending to the waterhole they opened, “Incoming.”

It’s frequented by two buffoonish stereotype Italians, Mario and Tony, bottom feeder mobsters, who just happen to be there when some equally buffoonish Mexican stereotypes rob the place. Impressed by how Scott and Billy (especially Billy) handle themselves, the indebted mob duo decides to kidnap the mentally challenged Billy and force him to fight in the underground Los Angeles cage fighting circuit.

The fighting ring, which isn’t unlike the earliest savage incarnation of the rule-free UFC, is governed by perhaps the ethnic group that comes off the least well in this production, the Chinese. Their champ is bankrolled by a Triad mobster and is king of the hill, top of the heap…

Of course, Scott has to track down his brother, and enlists the help of a reporter trying to break the story for the LA Times. Meanwhile, poor Billy has to fight for his very survival.

Cage is laughable, yet remains highly watchable. Reb Brown exudes effortless charm. He may possess an acting range from here til the end of your arm, but there’s something indescribably awesome about the man, without whom we wouldn’t have our podcast*.

Notable as well for featuring the uncredited ex-prison boxing champ Danny Trejo in a rather thankless role as hired muscle.

*** (out of 5)

[*CHECK OUT OUR PODCAST OF CAGE!]