Jennifer (Meg Tilly) returns to her small California hometown with her boyfriend Stuart (Tim Matheson) after her mother attempted suicide. The strange part is her mother did it on the phone after she called Jennifer in a rambling rage. The stranger part is everyone in the town has started acting kind of strange after a small earthquake. Something has caused folks to lose the inhibitions and it results in all out chaos with everyone raging or lusting after each other. Wow! Now this is why I love watching movies because there is always an unheralded gem out there like this. Sure, it was done before with Romero's very similar The Crazies (1973), but this is just as engaging. This was Brit director Graham Baker's second feature (after The Final Conflict in 1981) and he handles it so well. There is a great slow build of craziness until things just explode. One great scene has Hume Cronyn as the town doc tampering with the mother's oxygen supply. Another is a scene where Matheson succumbs to the craziness by seducing a bubble gum chewing teenager that is done perfectly with no dialogue. Look for Bill Paxton as Jennifer's younger brother and Peter Jason as a government guy.
