Narrative structures and The Crazies (Eisner, 2010)

Narrative structures and The Crazies.

"The crazies" does not follow the Classic Hollywood Narrative (CHN) theory as the very first shot in this film is a town up in flames. Following the shot is a peaceful town and from this point a rather more traditional narrative commences, however as it is not the start of the film I would argue that on a whole "The Crazies" does not follow the CHN.


Below I have listed Propp's character types and written in brackets the ones that apply to "The Crazies"

1. The villain(s) (Those infected with the virus, possibly the military)

2. The hero (The Sheriff - David)

3. The donor – who provides an object with some magic property. (absent in this case)

4. The helper who aids the hero. (The Deputy Sheriff - Russell)

5. The princess (the sought for person) – reward for the hero and object of the villain’s schemes. (Judy)

6. Her father – who rewards the hero. (absent in this case)

7. The dispatcher – who sends the hero on his way. (absent in this case)

8. The false hero (Russell also as he betrays Judy and David despite saving David's life 3 times)


Binary oppositions:

1. At the start of the film there is the dystopian image of the town on fire and then instantly cuts to a baseball game in the Utopian looking small town portraying images of safety and good nature.

2. The evil in the film is presented in two opposite manors in the way that the evil against the humans is the government for their evil crimes against humanity in killing the citizens and engineering the biological weapon. Then we have "the crazies" who are a sort of zombified version of humans who are evil just in a separate way where they are not in control of their actions and are just well... crazy.


Examples of events which happen before the film but greatly affect the film and its events are things such as Judy getting pregnant, this is very important as it leads to her and David getting separated by the military which leads to David going to rescue her and ultimately leading to their survival. Another is the actual creation of the weaponised virus that creates the 'crazies' in the film, although it is not seen, we know it has happened due to the events of the film.

Two things that happened within the duration of the film but in a different time space (so not actually seen in the film) were things such as the kidnapping of Russel (we know this happened due to the fact we see him on the bus with David and Judy. The other is the killing of all the citizens by the military (including the healthy ones) this is evident when David stumbles upon a truck which was earlier carrying healthy citizens to an unknown location, and now was storing the corpses of said citizens.