Review of Nightmare City (1980) by Bryan G — 11 Oct 2005

[font=Courier New]It took me three tries to finish this movie. And not back to back like with [i]Alone in the Dark[/i]. No, this film took me about 5 years to finally watch in its entirety. Having done so, I can admit that there is something absurdly fun about this film. But it isn?t enough to make up for just how much bad there is in this movie.

I?ll respect the film for taking a chance and making the zombies smart, and fast. But a little more thought could have been put into making the zombies look? well, good. Either the zombie is covered in cheap scabs, wet blood or something that looks like moss. And seeing these things, especially the moss ones, you never really get scared of them. Most of the time, I was worried more about the fact that they actually had to touch their victims. That alone is terror enough.

In the movie, we follow a married couples journey through their zombie filled city. The wife is a doctor who freezes up whenever there is a zombie near her, and the husband is a journalist who becomes a kung fu hero when zombies are around. All the other characters are pretty much expendable. The cast mostly consists of female characters doing really dumb things, and not wearing a bras. Yes, like most old Italian horror films, there are a lot of pointless breast shots in this movie.

The music in the movie is remotely good at some points, but really awkward at others. Sometimes I couldn?t tell if the score was happening, or if it was supposed to be a noise like a zombie pounding at a wall. There is one central theme that keeps playing throughout the movie. Basically, when you hear it start up, prepare for stuff to get shot at.

The gore is decent, but extremely unbelievable. At one point, someone gets their head blown off, but when they fall to the ground, it?s still attached to their body. But, whatever. There is something fun about this movie, that once you get into the groove of it the movie becomes watchable. I wouldn?t recommend this to anyone, unless you are willing to sit through some of the worst acting/music/special effects ever. [/font].