The Crazies

The Crazies does not fully follow the classic Hollywood narrative. At the beginning of the film we have our traditional equilibrium. We get introduced to a town called Ogden Marsh. The first scene shows a baseball game taking place, with the local sheriff and his deputy watching. Everything appears to be fine. Then we get disruption of equilibrium when a local resident walks onto the playing field with a shotgun. As he remained unresponsive the sheriff had no choice but to kill him. After this, the narrative continues to be held at disequilibrium as the unknown killing continues. At the end of the film we assume that the new equilibrium is placed, as the sheriff and his wife make it out of the town. However after we see them make it into another town. The audience are then given information that the disease had spread and has contaminated the town in which they are approaching. So we do not get the new equilibrium at the end of the film.

Within the film we can identify some of Propp’s character types. The hero or main protagonist of the film would be the sheriff of the town, David. We also then have his wife Judy who’d be seen as the princess, as there are multiple occasions where David rescued her. When it comes to Russell, at the beginning of the film he comes across as being the donor or helper. However towards the end we get the idea that he may be a false hero. Then he sacrifices himself for David and Judy, reinforcing that he is in fact helping the main characters. The villain of the film can be seen in two ways, firstly you have the most obvious which is all those who are infected with the disease. The second is the government and the military. It was the government who sent the plane holding the toxic biological weapon. The military were also killing innocent people as well as the infected. 

We can also spot binary opposites within the film. The most obvious is probably good/evil. This can be seen through the good and evil of the Ogden Marsh community, or the good of the community and the evil of the government for infecting the community. 

Peace/war is seen when there is an outbreak of war between the infected and the military, but also the non-infected trying to make peace between themselves and the army by attempting to prove that they are not infected. 

Life/death the whole community are fighting for their lives within the film. The infected were killing simply because they are evil. The military were killing to fight off the infected. The non-infected were killing to stay alive. 

Sanity/insanity due to the contamination those who weren't infected were having to fight making sure that they held themselves together and didn't lose their mind.

The three different durations of the film run over 92 minutes of the film screening time.The plot duration is over a three day period, at the start of the film we are shown a future scene two days before and it shows the town on fire. The three days is from when we see the first sign of the infection (Rory) to the ending of the film where David and Judy are walking to the next town. The story duration would of most likely taken years. The main story of the disease would of taken a while for it to hit the town and we don't know how long the plane has been in the river for, it would of taken them a while for the disease to function and spread.

Within the film we see events that cause later events but don't occur before the film starts. One of these things is Judy being pregnant. This actually has quite a large impact in the film as it makes her become more vulnerable therefore David escaped form the governments base to go back and save her. Another example could be the actual creation of the disease. We aren't shown how it was created.

There were a few events in the film that happen in a different time and space to the one that we are shown. One of these events is at the start of the film, we see a clip of Odgen Marsh on fire. This shows us ahead in the future, making the audience question as to what happened. Another event would be the plane crash, this happens in a time before we are taken to it in the film. We have no recollection of the plane crash until David and Russell find it in the river.