The Crazies- Breck Eisner 2010

1. Does The Crazies follow the Classical Hollywood Narrative?

I believe that it does not follow the Classical Hollywood Narrative, because this film begins with the image of a burning and destroyed town. This is not having everything balanced with normality and at equilibrium, that the the CHN states. Similarly, this film also ends on an enigma, so we don't know if the heroic couple will now survive another attack in the next town. Therefore, this is not following the CHN, as this states that the film ends with a reinstatement of a new equilibrium, and The Crazies certainly does not.

2. How many of Propp's character types can be identified in the film?

• Hero- David (Sheriff). He fights off the zombies to keep himself and people close to him safe. He protects his wife, endangering himself in the process.
• Villain- Disease/Zombies/Army. David and Judy fight against all of these forces to get free and escape the infected town.
• False hero/Helper- Russell. He turns on David and Judy when he becomes infected. However, he also helps them both to escape to safety nearer the end, and protects them from zombies that are attacking David and Judy in their home.
• Heroine/helper- Judy (sheriff's wife). She has to be protected my David, but also saves him from a zombie that is attacking him.

3. List five examples of binary opposition.

• Infected vs healthy- there is a divide throughout the whole film between the people who have the disease, and people who are well. 
• Known vs unknown- at the beginning the audience know that it is an ordinary town, but it becomes unknown why people are acting 'differently' and start turning crazy. 
• Humans vs aliens- the infected become seen as another species to humans and civilization. 
• Strong vs weak- Davis and Judy prove to be strong willed and in more control than Becca who finds protection behind everyone else, and is the first out of the four to be killed. 
• Love vs individual- David escapes from the quarantine to find Judy (who has been taken away by the army). Another man who is there doesn't want to find his wife, making David and Judy's love seem stronger than ever. 

4. Identify the three 'durations' and give an estimate of the time each covers.

• Plot duration- the amount of time that has passed in the film from the character's perspective- three days.
• Scree duration- how long the film plays for, and how long it takes to watch it- 92 minutes.
• Story duration- the plot duration plus aspects of the story that we are only told about and don't physically see. Such as, the plane crash and the virus being made- This process could have taken years for the virus to have been tested and produced, so the story time for this movie is unclear, but could be ranging from 10 years to 1 year, as they can't have done vast research to find out the extent to the virus spreading. 

5. Give two examples of events that cause later events in the film, but which occur before the film starts.

• The plane crash in the lake, that causes the virus to spread among the town through the water. 
• Judy got pregnant before the film starts. This causes her to be taken away from David in the quarantine process because of her high temperature. 

6. List two events from the 92 minute film that happened in a different time and space to the one we are shown. 

• We don't see the people who get the virus actually changing and becoming infected. We just see them before-when they are normal- and after- when they are killing people.
• We also don't see people who are infected in this village making their way to the next own where David and Judy end up, however we know this happens, as the extreme aerial shot at the end tells us that this town is also infected, and on a much larger scale than the previous.