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Sick Product of a Sick System

Nice effects though.

I wanted to but couldn't!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

OK, so the zombies look ridiculous and the film is not scary in the least. But what you have is a very well-directed action-thriller with plenty of blood, beautiful women and locations and a fast plot.Zombies are on the loose in Italy and a couple do their best to survive and stop the epidemic. I was reminded of Brad Pitt's World War Z a bit. Its a good movie even if its not a real zombie movie.Nowhere near as interesting as the films of Lucio Fulci but a definite watch for fans of low budget Italian action.

Anybody watching Umberto Lenzi's ultra-tacky "zombie" epic NIGHTMARE CITY and expecting a serious movie will be sorely disappointed. Anybody watching for some hilarious acting and action is sure to enjoy themselves with the sheer awfulness of both apparent here. Struggling along with no plot to speak of, Lenzi moves from one gory highlight to the next, neither letting the lack of budget nor the lack of talent get in his way. The end result is a surprisingly enjoyable and fast-paced film, which manages to be quite spooky and foreboding in places - especially towards the end where the reporter hero and his girlfriend tour the countryside while being attacked by the dead. Not as powerful as DAWN OF THE DEAD, which it closely emulates in some instances – such as the gas stop interlude - but still one of the better Italian zombie epics (aside from Lucio Fulci's work).However, the producers of this enjoyable mess do deserve at least some kudos for taking their movie in a different direction from where you might have expected. Gone are the slow-moving, shambling corpses from the likes of Romero and Fulci; in their place are a pack of fast-moving, weapon-wielding maniacs who hack or shoot their enemies to death and then, with a childlike-glee, gulp their blood plasma down. These "zombies" carry hatchets or machine guns - whichever is nearest - and run around like a bunch of lunatics, so they're a lot more difficult to avoid as well - whereas previous creations have only been particularly menacing when they get you trapped. The makeup is particularly bad, but Lenzi extracts the utmost from his limited funds. The blood flows rather steadily, and various victims get stabbed in the eyes, have their necks slashed, or other, more delicate areas torn off. Lenzi's violence seems particularly misogynistic here, as most of the victims are women; either working out in leotards or having their uniforms ripped off in hospital to show some nudity before dying. The special effects are poor, but unpleasant enough to give them a 'video nasty' quality.The acting is non-existent but the dubbing could have been worse; it's still pretty bad but then as you know these elements just add to the fun. Hugo Stiglitz is a particularly boring and charisma-free hero, and methinks an actor ten years younger should have taken his place. I mean, this bearded shuffler is supposed to be a ROMANTIC lead as well? Give me a break! Mel Ferrer pops up as an amusing general who listens to nobody, he did seem to be slumming it in these kind of pics around this time (EATEN ALIVE anybody?). In one of the film's more bizarre highlights, one man arrives home to find his zombified wife sculpting...a zombie head, no less! Things get a little repetitive around the halfway mark, but the violence is steady and gruesomely satisfying/amusing to keep you watching. Lenzi directs some good set pieces, including an excellent hospital massacre that must have inspired a similar scene in PLANET TERROR. Meanwhile, things pick up for the thrilling finale which sees our survivors fleeing to an abandoned fair ground and taking potshots at the zombie bad guys, having realised that to destroy them you must "aim for the head!". This bit reminded me a lot of 28 WEEKS LATER.Unfortunately, there's a really, really lame twist ending where it turns out that the whole film has been a dream and the film's beginning plays again. As we've already witnessed this five minute build-up, these five minutes have to be the most stultifyingly boring of any film I've ever seen. Thankfully this is just one negative aspect of an incident-packed and generally good fun movie; one which has repeated scenes of fleeing people running out of ammo and throwing their guns at the bad guys; a hilarious moment where a zombie bursts in on a delicate operation and the annoyed surgeon throws his scalpel at his assailant like an expert knife-wielder; lots of silly acting; and, of course, the big focus point of the movie where a plane lands and the machine-gun wielding zombies jump off and massacre the airport staff, generally regarded as one of the most unintentionally amusing moments in a zombie movie EVER. Check this one out if you can!

Nightmare City (1980)When director Umberto Lenzi was approached to helm Nightmare City he was presented with an original script for a short film about zombies. Lenzi balked at the idea feeling that the material should be longer and, more importantly for him, not about zombies. He considered that George A. Romero had covered zombies fully by then with both his original Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead and there was little more he could add. Instead Lenzi adapted the script using the Seveso incident of July 1976 fine-tuning it into a film that attacks the military and the effects of chemicals on the environment. What he has actually made is a pure exploitation film. There is a plot of sorts but don't dwell on it because no one involved in the writing of this film did. It's frankly absurd. Local television news reporter Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) arrives at an airport with his cameraman. They are there to cover the arrival of famous doctor Professor Hagenbeck. Quite how they know the scientist is arriving there is never made clear as no one else at the airport is aware of the plane arriving and are treating it with the highest level of suspicion. Just as well really as when the plane's doors open out pop a tonne of blood- thirsty creatures who waste no time chowing down on the soldiers.Rather oddly the infected fail to notice Dean and his cameraman - and rather conveniently too as the plot needs Dean to get the word out and warn the public - not that anyone will listen of course. It appears that the plane that Dean saw spill out its deadly formerly-human cargo had been exposed to radiation. It's a form of radiation that doesn't seem to affect the creatures too adversely, they can still run and chase potential victims. That's hardly in keeping with the known effects from radiation exposure. Instead they just get a little crusty in the facial make-up department (it looks awful) and drink blood from the uninfected.Dean has no joy in trying to broadcast an urgent transmission. He is stopped by the military who would rather that the public not be panicked (no, we'll just have them killed by the radiation crazies that we cannot contain instead, makes perfect sense). The military, led by General Murchison (Mel Ferrer) do nothing except take phone calls and ponteficate whereas Dean is more proactive. He is constantly trying to get hold of his wife Dr. Anna Miller (Laura Trotter) but she's having none of his nonsense, silly cow. However once she's onboard and looking to escape from the nameless city she does nothing but scream and expect her wooden hubby to rescue her when all she has to do is move.Lenzi claims that his film heavily influenced director Danny Boyle's later 28 Days Later, with it's running infected, as well as some of Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. And like Danny Boyle Lenzi refutes that his film is a zombie film and quite rightly too. Lenzi sees his film as anti-military and that his ghouls are infected by radiation sickness and therefore not zombies. His 'infected' have an awful habit of ripping off the clothes from a female victim, to reveal their boobies, rather than simply kill them as they do the men that fall victim to them. I found this distasteful. No really I did. Pure misogyny at it's ugliest!Nightmare City (also known as Incubo Sulla Città Contaminate and City of the Walking Dead) is not a particularly good film but it IS a fun watch, aside from the wanton misogyny. It moves at such a pace that you can easily overlook it's numerous shortcomings. It is what one would call a 'guilty pleasure' - it's trash but you can't help but warm to it. Make- up artist Tom Savini is remaking Nightmare City and supervising the film's special make-up effects too. It is due for release in 2016. Here's hoping it plays better than his misguided Night of the Living Dead remake.Check out more of my reviews at www.mybloodyreviews.com

An airplane exposed to radiation lands, and blood drinking zombies emerge armed with knives, guns and teeth! They go on a rampage slicing, dicing, and biting their way across the Italian countryside.Director Umberto Lenzi felt the film was not as much as zombie film but a "radiation sickness movie" with hints of an anti-nuclear and anti-military message. Quentin Tarantino has even said he was criticized by Lenzi for calling it a "zombie" film rather than an "infected people" film. (Tarantino further points out, perhaps correctly, this is the first zombie or infection film where the bad guys run instead of walk.) John Kenneth Muir referred to the film as a "cobbled together disaster", but went on to say it was not the worst zombie film of the 1980s -- that honor goes to Bruno Mattei's "Hell of the Living Dead". Danny Shipka described the film as "absolutely terrible in every way" as well as referring to poor make-up effects, poor acting and a plot that "makes no sense". Are you guys missing the point?