On this day in Horror History, The Crazies made it theatrical debut. The second celebrated masterpiece to come from the mind of the renowned director George A. Romero, the tale of the small Pennsylvania town that is plagued by a pandemic of homicidal and psychotic inhabitants is one of the most unique in Romero’s career, giving us a similar but terrifying perspective on a fragile society. Following suit with the peculiar legal and seemingly bad luck faced by George in his directorial process, the film was plagued in its own right due to a scene being shot that inadvertently resulted in a local seeing the filming of the conclusion of the movie in which Col. Peckem removes his clothing to decontaminate prior to evacuating the area. The “traumatic” experience of seeing a nude man resulted in a lawyer being hired to resolve the situation. One off remake aside, the film has stood the test of time, and is truly candy for the undying horror buff that needs to indulge in the sweeter moments of George A. Romero’s incomparable legacy.
“Okay, Colonel Peckem, last test is negative. You're all clean, virus free. We can sign you out. The helicopter will be arriving in a few minutes. “ –Army Doctor
I Love this movie! The realistic feel I get from it is extremely creepy!
Part 2:
March 16, 2006
On this day in Horror History, Fido made it's theatrical debut. As close to a family film as a zombie movie could ever hope to achieve, the sheer humor of seeing the facet of years of the genre, in the light of the typical family’s dog in the Horror/Comedy masterpiece, is flawless. From the imagery of a young boy trying to play catch with a zombie, who doesn’t react when a baseball hits him in the face, to the everyday applications were domesticated cannibals could be implemented, this film was an instant classic.
Fido is still shroud in financial loss, with no help from an 8 million dollar budget and all star cast. Fido was a hit among many film festivals including the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, giving much hope to its investors. Most critics loved it, but with a US gross of $298,110 and a worldwide gross of $419,801, the gross revenue of Fido didn’t even make a tenth of its budgets invested in film. What resulted was statistically, one of the lowest return on investments cataloged by any film of all time, per Box Office Mojo’s website. In other words, thank you Andrew Currie and all investors in the movie, because you paid 7 million dollars out of pocket, to give us perhaps the most distinct and beautiful additions to modern Cinema.
