Review of Nightmare City (1980) by Andrew H — 01 Nov 2010

I was in a mood for some cheesy trash, so I brushed off the dust off my Nightmare City DVD and popped it in.

Plot: A reporter with a cameraman head to the airport to encounter a famous scientist for an interview. On arrival, something is not quite right. An unidentified aircraft lands and attracts the attention of the military force. The aircraft is warned to identify itself, but seems to be abandoned. The aircraft door opens and the scientist seems to be ill. He stabs an officer and all hell breaks loose as a hoard of deformed madmen armed to the teeth with knives, axes and guns, kill everything in sight outnumbering the military. Rapidly the human race is infected as humans go amok attacking a TV station, a hospital, a military base and the country side. The nightmare has just begun.

Original, no. Fun, yes. Director Umberto Lenzi from "Cannibal Ferox" fame delivered this piece of Italian trash. The special effects are laughable, and the dubbing is awful. But that doesn't seem to be a problem as it just adds a touch of charm to this whole mess. I was able to recognise several of the dubbed voices from numerous Italian films, mostly of the Cannibal or exploitation genre. The eerie electronic piano synth score is quite nice, typical of the era.

The editing is pretty standard and cinematography nothing special. The lighting is really bad as well. There are though some nice areal shots of the infected human race roaming the country side. This was obviously made on the cheap, so what came to my mind was if the extras got paid, or were they simply the entire crew.

Still it is a fun watch. Women expose their breasts a lot and Mr Lenzi seems to have quite a fixation in this film. Women are stabbed a lot in the breasts and have them sliced off. All the characters are annoying and I just didn't care about them as I sat and waited for them to be killed, wishing it would have happened sooner.

The humans are not referred to as Zombies, but infected and highly contagious. A radiation leak in a nuclear power plant has turned humans in to something even worse than super humans with extraordinary strength.(or something like that)The infected are not out for flesh, but out for blood as it gives them superhuman strength. The military is given strict orders to shoot the infected in the head, but don't. The infected are quite handy as well, as they team together attacking humans, and even disconnect telephone lines. The infected also wipe their mouths after feeding on human blood, which made me laugh till my stomach hurt.

There are some nice scenes and plenty of head shots, but that doesn't come until the last 30 minutes. I really liked a scene when the reporter and his girlfriend seek refuge in a Church. "Legend has it that if they really are vampires, they can't enter this Church if not invited" Ha ha ha. Some of the dialogue is so bad I just laughed a lot in disbelief. Entering the Church, they find a priest reading a bible. Of course he is infected and the reporter bashes him to death with a big candle stick. A nice scene actually.

Nightmare City will have you laughing as you witness people throwing their weapons at the infected, as they run out of ammo.

Lenzi tries to give a decent climax twist I won't reveal, but fails miserably as you watch laughing in disbelief.

Give it a go if you like bad films that are quite good in a charming manner.