Entertainment
How George A. Romero's Extremely R-Rated Sci-Fi Was Overshadowed By The Living Dead Franchise
By Brian Myers
| Published
Director and screenwriter George A. Romero has long been regarded as the godfather of the modern zombie film. The late filmmaker certainly earned that moniker, with his debut feature Night of the Living Dead forever changing Hollywood’s conception of what these undead creatures are. In the decades that followed his 1968 opus, Romero continued the “Living Dead” saga with five additional films. Remakes and spinoffs from other filmmakers followed, each one paying homage to the original master to varying degrees.
But somewhere in between the film that began his career and its 1977 follow-up Dawn of the Dead lies a largely forgotten sci-fi horror movie that deserves its due. Far from the successes that any of Romero’s zombie films enjoyed, the 1973 film The Crazies is certainly one worth revisiting.
A Sci-Fi Horror Slaughter
The film opens in a farmhouse occupied by a family of four. While the two young children are playing, the father comes into frame, destroying everything in his path with a crowbar. As the young girl runs to her mother’s bedside for help, she makes a chilling discovery. The woman had been beaten to death while she slept.
The father then ignites the kerosene that he dumped all over the floors of the house and sets it aflame. The two children escape with severe burns and are tended to in the local clinic. When nurse Judy arrives to help the town doctor, she is greeted by a group of men in full HAZMAT gear who are scrambling to set up and distribute equipment. As Judy tries to make sense of what is happening, she overhears a heated conversation between Dr. Brookmyre and the military officer who has seemed to take over the clinic.
Major Ryder reveals that a devastating bio-weapon, code-named “Trixie,” was accidentally released into the local water supply days before when the military plane carrying it crashed near the town of Evans City, PA. The chemical infects those exposed to it with a highly contagious disease that causes homicidal mania in those who survive initial exposure.
With a mandated press blackout and a government quarantine that has sealed off the community, the townspeople are cut off from the outside world. Donning gas masks and white protective gear, military personnel go from home to home and round up citizens, herding them into the school gymnasium. Anyone who attempts to run is shot on sight.
More Layers Than Your Typical Romero Film
The Crazies brings three forms of horror onto the screen for audiences. Initially, the concept of madness from an unknown disease is a terror that viewers are forced to reckon with when the farmer goes berserk during the opening moments of the film. A more realistic horror then begins to unfold as the military is shown forcing its way into homes and executing civilians. Finally, the dangers of mob mentality grip you with fear. The civilians who evaded capture (some infected with the virus, for sure) began to revolt and kill the soldiers. While an understandable reaction, it’s this very mentality that leads to the devastating fate of the town and possibly the rest of humanity.
The Crazies packs in multiple chilling scenes, making it worthy of a Romero film. In one sequence of events, a farmer begins shooting troops out of his window as his wife attacks one with her knitting needles. These acts of desperate violence play out while the couple’s young daughter plays the piano, seemingly oblivious to the carnage that is unfolding in front of her.
In another scene, an infected minister is shown running from his church with a can of gasoline. As he screams prayers, he douses himself with fuel and lights himself on fire.
The film is a quick burn (no pun intended), with jarring action from the opening frames and throughout its entirety. As with so many other Romero films, the real horror in The Crazies is the one that man brings on himself. The director can bring to life a realistic man vs. man conflict without the zombie makeup or grotesque special effects, giving audiences a good sense of how these circumstances could play out in reality.
Reimagined For A New Generation
Following the success of Romero’s Land of the Dead in the early 2000s, Paramount Pictures began to develop a remake of his overlooked masterpiece. After early negotiations fell through, the project was picked up by the now-defunct Starz Network vehicle Overture Films in 2008. With a modest budget of $20M, director Breck Eisner reimagined Romero’s early 70s feature into a vividly terrifying 101 minutes on the big screen.
Timothy Olyphant (Justified, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) stars as the Sheriff of the fictional rural community of Ogden Marsh, Iowa. Though the remake incorporates the bioweapon being released into the town’s water supply via a military plane crash, that’s where most of the similarities with the original end. It’s still a solid watch through and through.
You can stream the original version of The Crazies for free with Tubi. The big-budget remake is currently available on the Roku Channel.
Entertainment
Student sues matchmaking app for allegedly stealing her likeness for an ad
A 19-year-old University of Tennessee freshman is suing the makers of a social matchmaking app after the company allegedly lifted a video from her TikTok page and used it — without her knowledge or consent — in an advertisement suggesting she was looking for casual sexual encounters. The company then supposedly targeted that ad at men living in her own dormitory.
Kaelyn Lunglhofer filed the lawsuit on April 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee against Quantum Communications Development Limited, a British Virgin Islands-based company, and its Chinese affiliates. The defendants own and operate a social media and messaging app called Meete. Per the lawsuit, Meete claims to have 17 million users worldwide.
According to the complaint, Lunglhofer posted a video to her public TikTok account on May 31, 2025 — the day of her high school graduation — showing off an orange outfit from her bedroom while music played in the background. Defendants allegedly pulled a 10-second clip from that video and used it as the backdrop for a Meete advertisement that ran on social media platforms like Snapchat.
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The ad, per the complaint, featured female narration stating, “Are you looking for a friend with benefits? This app shows you women around you who are looking for some fun. You can video chat with them.” Lunglhofer’s face was on screen, and the Meete logo was prominently displayed.
According to the suit, Meete allegedly used geolocation technology to serve the ad specifically to male users within the Knoxville, Tennessee area. This includes men living on other floors of her on-campus dormitory building. Lunglhofer found out about the ad because one of the male residents in her dorm alerted her to it, she said in an interview with local ABC affiliate, WKRN.
The suit brings claims under the federal Lanham Act (which addresses businesses’ use of misleading claims), Tennessee’s right of publicity statute — known as the ELVIS Act — and Tennessee common law defamation. Lunglhofer is seeking compensatory damages of $750,000, disgorgement of Meete’s profits tied to the ad campaign, and punitive damages. She is also seeking to have the ad removed entirely.
Mashable reached out to Meete but did not receive a response in time for publication. The firm representing Lunglhofer also did not yet respond to a request for comment.
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Apps & Software
Scams
Entertainment
Amazon just dropped the new M4 iPad Air to an all-time low, but youll have to act fast
SAVE 13%: As of May 4, you can get the 11-inch Apple iPad Air (M4) for $519.99, down from $599 at Amazon. That’s a 13% discount and $79.01 savings.
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It’s not often that we get a good Apple deal on a non-big-sale day (e.g., Prime Day), but yesterday Amazon dropped the Apple iPad Air 11-inch (M4) to an all-time low of $519.99. That’s a 13% discount, or an extra $79.01 in your pocket.
If you’re still on the fence, Mashable’s Tech Editor Timothy Beck Werth recently awarded this tablet a Mashable Choice award and rated it a 4.5/5 on our very strict (we’re pretty tough) scale. And while it looks basically the same as the previous-gen, Werth says it “delivers faster performance thanks to an improved neural engine and Apple’s N1 and C1X connectivity chips,” adding that “artists and note-takers will definitely appreciate this one.”
If you order it right now, Amazon guarantees free delivery by this Wednesday, May 6 (exactly four days before Mother’s Day, just in case you’re trying to get some extra brownie points with Mom).
Thanks to Liquid Glass and iPadOS26, the newest iPad Air can do double-duty as a laptop, though you’ll need Apple’s Magic Keyboard. Fortunately, both the Magic Keyboard and the Apple Pencil Pro are also on sale at Amazon; both iPad accessories are currently $30 off, at least, for Prime members.
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Entertainment
Roomba inventor unveils a companion robot thats more pet than helper
At this point, most home robots are either glorified vacuums or far-off concepts that may never become commercially available. However, we just got a look at a new home companion robot potentially coming to market next year, and its inventor has a proven track record of putting robots into homes.
Colin Angle, co-founder of Roomba maker iRobot, fully unveiled his new company Familiar Machines & Magic at the Wall Street Journal‘s The Future of Everything event this week.
FM&M’s goal is to make home robots that act more as emotional companions than chore machines. Its debut product is a four-legged robot companion codenamed Ami (per The Verge). The robot looks like a cross between a dog and a bear, and it’s designed to spark a connection with its human owner.
“The next era of robotics is not just about dexterity or humanoid form — it’s about machines that can build and sustain human connection,” Angle said, per an official press release.
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Ami probably won’t launch until next year at the earliest, and we don’t have a price point yet, but it’s still quite fascinating to look at. In addition to its Roomba pedigree, a Familiar Machines & Magic press release states that the company’s employees have also worked with Disney Research, MIT, Amazon, Boston Dynamics, Bose, and Sonos.
The robot animal has 23 degrees of freedom and can move its head, ears, and eyes.
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Credit: Familiar Machines & Magic
According to The Verge, it can’t grasp objects or climb stairs, which would severely limit its usefulness, if it existed to be useful, anyway. It uses on-device generative AI to learn about its owner and respond to the owner’s needs on an emotional level.
One very important detail is that it doesn’t speak, instead purring and making other pet-like noises. A pet seems to be the best point of comparison here, as the robot seems almost totally incapable of performing practical tasks, and instead exists to make people feel less lonely.
Some other crucial points include a touch-sensitive coat that should, in theory, be pleasurable to pet, and onboard cameras and microphones that help the robot react to situations without streaming that audio or video anywhere. It doesn’t have to connect to the internet to work.
The idea of using AI to cure the loneliness epidemic isn’t necessarily new or without merit, even if it can sometimes feel a bit dystopian.
Last year, Mashable reported on a service that allowed the elderly to talk to an AI over the phone, just for the sake of providing company. Multiple companies are creating AI-powered robot companions for elder care applications, including startups like ElliQ and Abi.
Anthropomorphizing robots and artificial intelligence can be dangerous, especially given what we know about AI psychosis. However, some experts believe that companion robots could prove beneficial in specific settings.
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Artificial Intelligence
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Celtics' Jaylen Brown critical of refs for 'agenda,' calls out 76ers' Joel Embiid
Chandler Simpson Is an Anomaly for Tampa Bay Rays
