Nightmare City

Italy - Spain / 1980 Directed by Umberto Lenzi Starring Hugo Stiglitz Laura Trotter Mel Ferrer Color / 92 Minutes / Not Rated Format: DVD (R0 - NTSC) Anchor Bay Entertainment

Music from the film Zombie Attack Cue MP3 format - 0.6 MB

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2008 Blue Underground Edition

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6     7   10 = Highest Rating

Most of the tried-and-true conventions of the Italian zombie film are tossed overboard in Nightmare City, an Italo-Spanish co-production directed by Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox, Eaten Alive). Here the living dead aren't gut-munching flesh eaters but rather blood-drinking vampires. They're anything but slow and lethargic — no shambling, automaton-like revenants staggering around in this baby. These monsters are as fast and coordinated as normal humans. They run, jump, fistfight, drive vehicles and use weapons! It's one thing to defend yourself against mindless zombies who just shuffle towards you, trying to grab hold for a snack. But what do you do when they pick up submachine guns and start blasting? (Besides laughing, that is.)     Hugo "Stiff Man" Stiglitz — who makes Star Trek's Mr. Spock seem like an emotional powderkeg — stars as Dean Miller, a TV journalist assigned to interview an important scientist. He and a cameraman go to the city airport to cover the arrival of the scientist, who's scheduled to make a statement concerning a serious radiation leak at a nuclear power plant. While they're waiting on the tarmac an unidentified cargo plane appears over the runway, coming in to land. The plane, which fails to respond to I.D. requests by the control tower, touches down and is immediately surrounded by airport security forces. Miller senses a potential story; he and his cameraman move closer to record the action. The plane's door opens and out steps the scientist they were sent to interview... but the egghead immediately plunges a knife into the chest of the security commander! Suddenly a whole platoon of zombies leaps from the plane and goes Berserker on the airport troops. Stabbing and bludgeoning the soldiers with knives and clubs, the ghouls snatch up the guns of the fallen and mow down reinforcements rushing to the battle. Miller is dumbstruck to see a number of the creatures absorb full machinegun blasts to the chest without being fazed. He's even more shocked when the attackers cut the throats of wounded and dead soldiers to drink their blood. With the unbelievable events caught on tape, Miller and the cameraman wisely beat feet from the airport back to the TV station.     You're probably thinking that now would be a swell time for some truly horrible disco-flavored Dance Fever shenanigans, complete with guys and gals in leotards step-two-three-fouring to really bad choreography. (No?) When Miller interrupts the live broadcast of just such a show to report what he's seen, the station boss has the plug pulled before he can roll the tape. Local military authorities have ordered a complete news blackout about the incident at the airport. Infuriated (Hugo's face does actually move a bit here), Miller quits his job on the spot. Before leaving the station he pauses to call his wife. Time for more hell to break loose! Zombies have infiltrated the building and unleash a murderous rampage that thankfully slaughters all those awful dancers. (One of 'em gets a tit sliced off!) Amid the chaos Miller barely manages to escape, commandeering a car and racing for the hospital where his wife works.     The remainder of the film cuts back and forth between the travails of Miller and his physician wife Anna (Laurie Trotter), the HQ where military commander General Murchison (Mel Ferrer) fails to get a grip on the crisis, and two other pointless subplots: the general's daughter and disrespectful son-in-law, and an army major who's pushing 60 with a sexy artist wife half his age. Essayed by wooden and/or poorly dubbed performers, you won't care about the fate of any of them. Nothing makes much logical sense and the characters do incredibly stupid things. This is the type of movie where, in the midst of an apocalyptic catastrophe, people turn off radios broadcasting emergency announcements. The zombies are actually smarter than the humans! They even sabotage the city's electrical grid, knocking out power and communications. What little we learn about the creatures comes from briefings to Murchison by subordinates. Somehow exposure to radiation has turned them into superhuman, living dead vampires who can only be killed by bullets to the head. Anyone slain or bitten by them in turn becomes a bloodthirsty ghoul, driven to kill. Thus the contamination spreads...     Nightmare City is deliriously goofy and all the more entertaining for it. The zombie attack scenes are a riot — one can't help chuckling while watching them kick human ass. That they've a predilection for ripping the blouses and bras from their female victims means there's a healthy dose of gratuitous nudity as well. (The ghouls get a nifty, catchy bit of theme music for the mass attack scenes, too, courtesy of composer Stelvio Cipriani. You can listen to a snippet of it by clicking the MP3 link on the left-hand sidebar.) And that's not all... A small portable TV hurled at one of the creatures explodes with the force of a thermite grenade... Though Murchison issues official orders to shoot all zombies in the head — "Aim for the brain" — his troops apparently forget this key point, later shown blazing away to no effect (Oh no! Shades of Hell Of The Living Dead!)... Despite being virtually immune to bullets, a zombie howls in agony when a door is slammed on his fingers... Yep, folks, it's that kind of movie. Even the lame, nonsensical ending seems fitting given all the stupidity that precedes it.     And one more thing: I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a key ingredient of this gooey cheese soufflé — the appearance of the monsters themselves. If you're looking for decayed, maggot-infested Fulci-style ghouls then forget it. The creature makeup here is as silly as everything else in the flick. Many of the zombies have heads that look like charred meatballs... or even South Park's Mr. Hanky! With stuff like this — and maybe some pizza rolls and a six pack — Nightmare City should keep you fairly bemused the whole way through.

Nightmare City first appeared in the U.S. on home video in 1984 under the misleading title City of the Walking Dead. (As described above, these living dead are certainly more energetic than that — their serious "blood jones" keeps 'em on the go!) On VHS the movie was cropped, cut and looked/sounded pretty bad. Anchor Bay's new DVD edition is like viewing an entirely different film. The widescreen presentation really opens things up. Colors are vivid; I didn't notice any wear and tear on the print whatsoever. The greatly improved picture quality is complimented by a generally strong mono audio track, with only occasional moments when I had to up the volume a tick or two to catch all the dialog.     Extras: The theatrical trailer is provided, along with a step-through text bio/filmography of director Umberto Lenzi. The prolific Italian schlockmeister is also the focus of a 13-minute video interview. Speaking in subtitled Italian, the professorial-looking Lenzi discusses the making of Nightmare City and the anti-pollution moral he was attempting to imbue it with. (So that's where all that philosophical babble in some of the movie's dialog came from!) It's actually amusing that Lenzi is so deadly serious about this... Didn't he watch his own film? While a pro-environment message is noble, it's something of a stretch to imagine audiences coming away with anything other than zombies, action, tits and gore. Nightmare City is an exploitation flick, nothing more. To see it as having any possible value other than as pure entertainment — of the "so bad it's good" variety — is ridiculous. 8/20/02

UPDATE In April 2008, Blue Underground is reissuing this title using the identical transfer and extras as the AB disc reviewed here. (Different cover art, however.)

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