The movie feels like picking up a newspaper from the early 70s and scanning the downbeat headlines. (Truffaut said that The Night of the Hunter was like “A horrifying news item retold by small children”; The Crazies is a newscast delivered by the insane.)

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 3, 2024

Even if Romero steals from himself to come up with his plot and themes for The Crazies, the film deserves its place as a cult classic on a purely cinematic level.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 22, 2023

While far from Romero's best, The Crazies is in one way his most frightening film.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 30, 2021

Romero does build some intense tension around the scenario, and the questions of who's going to survive it, and whether they'll deserve to.

Full Review | Mar 30, 2021

The script of 'The Crazies' is not an example of originality, but at least it works like a clock and it is allowed, from time to time, to agitate what's already predictable. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Sep 11, 2019

Romero does a few really great things in The Crazies, and regardless of whether the whole matches up to its parts, his writing remains solid and smart.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 3, 2019

One of Romero's most underrated efforts, The Crazies is highly recommended.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 28, 2018

The Crazies offers no hope, no comfort and sure as hell no happy ending.

| Sep 28, 2018

There's a lot of meat in this double plot, and a lot of reflection on the techniques of cinema itself.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 1, 2017

It may be a second-tier Romero film, but hell, it's still a Romero film.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 6, 2010

It's tough for a dyed-in-the-wool George Romero apologist to observe that a film of Romero's in good repute is an amateurish, exploitative piece of shit

| Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 3, 2010

An uncommonly interminable piece of work...

| Original Score: 0/4 | Feb 21, 2010

While George Romero would come to redefine horror once again with his brilliant Dawn of the Dead, this interesting action thriller illustrates the talent it took to be such a consistent genre visionary.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 21, 2010

Even with no ghouls, Romero exposes a nightmare

| Sep 5, 2009

Though it sounds like it ought to have more in the way of exploitation and gore, Romero shoots it straight, hoping his social commentary will carry it. It works superbly.

| Aug 21, 2008

Edited at a sprint, the movie is often shocking, occasionally gory, and never boring.

| Original Score: B | Apr 9, 2007

It might not be profound but is effective in showing how terrifying a civil emergency can be if handled in the wrong way.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 28, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 21, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 29, 2005

An inept science-fiction film from George A. Romero.

| May 9, 2005