The 2010 remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 horror film “The Crazies” takes place, unlike the 1973 version, in the small fictional town of Ogden Marsh, Iowa. The protagonists, David (the sheriff), and Judy (the local doctor and David’s wife), attempt to escape their town that has become a living apocalypse due to the local water’s contamination by a deadly manmade bioweapon called ‘Trixie’.
Our heroes must evade not only the infected humans, the ‘Crazies’, who turn into Zombified-looking maniac killers, but also the army that has been instructed to quarantine the whole town, even the uninfected, in an attempt to contain the spread.
Surmounting many horrifying obstacles, David and Judy finally reach Cedar Rapids, having escaped the Crazies and the army’s nuclear demolition of their town, only for the final shot to pan out and pin Cedar Rapids, implying the disease has already spread there.
While the movie is generally categorized as a basic horror trope, the real and vital importance of water and water quality to human life are impossible to overstate. And while the special effects in the movie are obviously the stuff of only movies, contaminated water is a real and important issue in Iowa. So are the some of the themes, including denial, proactivity, individual power and collective consequences – surrounding some of the environmental challenges.
The movie ends with a message of warning as David and Judy walk to Cedar Rapids just as a bioweapon reaches the city and a recognition of the interconnectivity of our waterways exposes Ogden Marsh’s issue and the reality that its contamination will immediately spread.
The fiction emphasizes the interrelatedness of our shared collective resources and how one tiny town’s actions and experiences can change the world. Whether it’s a bioweapon called ‘Trixie’ or nitrates from agricultural fertilizer, our waterways are dependent on efforts of all scales to prevent contamination, unlivable standards, or nightmares on film like the birth of a population of crazed murderers.
