Nightmare City
Italy/Spain 1980. Director: Umberto Lenzi
Cast: Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Mel Ferrer
Aka: Incubu sulla Città Contaminata

When watching this again after all these years I found it to be, strange but true, actually a little bit of fun. Almost like a Peter Jackson/Bad Taste fun. Obviously one could point out that the film is fun only because it's so bad. And it is bad. Oh yeah, it's bad. And it has Mel Ferrer. It's about as bad as it gets. But it's also an Umberto Lenzi film and Umberto knows what his audience wants. It doesn't want any quasi-explanations (Lucio Fulci) or creative set-design (Argento). It wants unashamed leave-your-brain-at-the-door entertainment and it wants zombies. And the zombies (sorry Umberto, "vampires") are here by the millions. They're everywhere and they have machine-guns and machetas and they're smiling and they runs after you. Though, like fan Quentin Tarantino said, it's no fun being chased by a zombie if he can run as fast as you! And it has the classic opening scene. A plane has landed on the airport and just stands there. Nothing else, just standing there. The millitary arrive. Journalists arrive. Nothing happens for what seems to be an eternity. The tension is unbearable. Suddenly the plane's door opens up and hundreds of smiling zombies with rotten make-up runs out killing everyone hilariously. Fucking unbeatable stuff. After that the zombies invades a ballet-class, biting the nipples off the dancers. Otherwise the premise is the same as always, a leak in a nuclear reactor makes people crave human flesh, and the production values are as expected (bad). But Lenzi is generous and gives us no bullshit, making Nightmare City a deranged but enjoyable zombie-gem, worth keeping for another decade. Three stars for the movie, an extra star for the intro. Be sure to get the European DVD, though, which has a really amazing audio commentary track by Umberto Lenzi himself where he proudly raves about the film as if it was the Citizen Kane of monster movies. Sorry to disappoint you Umberto, but not quite.