Customer Reviews

City of the Walking Dead [VHS]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

From the scattered and mottled composition of Nightmare City, I have gleaned the following intriguing facts:

(A) Radioactive Zombies are not like ordinary zombies; Radioactive Zombies are capable of piloting planes and wielding weapons of virtually any description.

(B) Radioactive Zombies do not look like ordinary zombies; Radioactive Zombies wear normal clothes, suits and ties, and look like someone dumped large buckets of pigeon excrement all over their heads and faces.

(C) Radioactive Zombies disregard the consumption of human flesh in favor of non-polite exsanguination.

(D) Radioactive Zombies have absolutely no regard for the institution of physical fitness and will brazenly slaughter aerobics instructors in the middle of a television broadcast.

Nightmare City occurs in the wake of some undisclosed radioactive spill, the result of which is a horde of blood-crazed maniacs. The city authorities are waiting for the return of the renowned professor sent to investigate the spill; however, when the professor does return he does so in an unmarked plane with no apparent flight plan. The professor himself leads the initial disgorge of zombies from the plane, attacking the military and airport personnel. AHHHHHH! The zombies prey upon the hapless and stupid humans, stabbing their victims and tearing open their throats to release geysers of spurting blood.

Unfortunately for Nightmare City, the protagonist is a sanctimonious reporter. The reporter flees from the airport massacre to interrupt an apparently very popular aerobics show to report the horrific events via a "special news flash" on Channel 5. The news flash is canceled, however, when the watchful military intervenes. The reporter disgustedly resigns his post. Meanwhile, the blood-crazed radioactive zombies have invaded the station and have begun to violently exsanguinate the aerobics instructors. Is nothing sacred?

Even worse than the forced cancellation of everybody's favorite aerobics show, the zombies are spreading their radioactive contagion to their victims. Sweet Jesus, the unthinkable carnage. The reporter manages to reach the local hospital, where he collects his wife and sets out with the intension of raiding for fuel and provisions and ostensibly fleeing Nightmare City; in the process of doing so, however, the reporter and his wife decide to pause for roughly ten minutes while they smugly wax philosophical and self-righteously condemn the race of man for his cruel disregard and technological trespasses. This gives the zombies just enough time to catch up, and the reporter and his wife subsequently lose access to the provisions as well as their vehicle.

At the end of the day, Nightmare City is stupid, disoriented, and lavishly violent, and since those are three qualities that I myself greatly appreciate, I have thenceforth bestowed upon the tangled mess called Nightmare City a rating of 4 stars.

This is cheese, right off. You know, bad in a funny way, thanks to poor dubbing, a goofball story, and hilarious toxic 'zombies' that are so relentless, they race off a jetliner shooting, stabbing and sucking the blood of anyone in sight!

This is a classic cheese zombie film, a must see for zombie gorehounds. Most of the film contains chases and evasive tactics by a man and woman team as they try to survive a day in Nightmare City. Plenty of gore, TONS of crappy looking, running, stabbing zombies that shoot machine guns.

The end Amusement Park location zombie attack scene is a must see.

Okay, that's a bit harsh, this film is actually growing on me. My feelings at this point are a bit torn. I found the first half of the movie to be rather monotonous; the second half really picked up. Perhaps it was more the final 3rd of the movie. Anyway, this is a hard film to describe without oversimplifying, because for much of it there was just a lot of killing and nothing much else, but I'll take a shot at a synopsis anyway.

"Nightmare City" is the story of a violent zombie attack on a metropolitan area as a result of a planeload of radiated passengers overpowering the population. Actually, I use the word "zombie" rather loosely here. These aren't really zombies. Truly, the Romero zombies aren't really zombies either, but that's another argument altogether. Taking George Romero's creations as the standard for movie zombies, or even the simple understanding that zombies are the walking dead, you couldn't classify the creatures in "Nightmare City" as being anything remotely close to zombies. The creatures in "Nightmare City" are more akin to what we saw in the recent film "28 Days Later." These are living humans who are infected with some sort of nuclear radiation sickness that makes them incredibly violent and powerful, with a desperation to fill their bellies with human blood. They also look like they've got taco meat on their face. From the moment they spill out of their plane and attack the city, the creatures embark on a weapon wielding killing spree that runs for most of the movie, with little scenes stuck in here and there to introduce characters that really aren't very important at all. Unless you're a complete gorehound, it can be really tedious to get through. However, the film does pick up in the latter half, when the attention begins to focus on a reporter character and his wife as they attempt to escape the madness. This last portion of the film does become moderately enjoyable, and the twist ending, while some who can't tolerate the cliche of it may complain, is really a welcome element. It adds a much needed kick to a generally lackluster film.

"Nightmare City" comes off as a rather amateurish film from Italian director Umberto Lenzi. The character development is virtually nonexistent, and the make-up is just plain awful. There's very little positive I CAN say about the film, except that it has its moments that do catch your eye, and the final act is really not too bad. It also must be given credit for the original spin it puts on the zombie genre. Still, I can't recommend the film to anyone except the most hardcore gore-lover and zombie film enthusiast. For those who ARE interested, however, the DVD includes an informative interview with the director, a theatrical trailer that would never have been shown in an American theater, and a bio of Umberto Lenzi. I suppose "Nightmare City" is a must watch for anyone wanting to explore Italian zombie horror, but do so at your own risk.

Nightmare City (City of the Walking Dead) is a good and pretty satisfactory retread of the zombie-gore formula. the plot is, naturally, unimportant. but this time it's radiation zombies, and you get to see the murderers in the form of regular looking people to really messed up in makeups that look like those mexican circus performer brothers with thick fur all over they're bodies that show up on Ripley's Believe it or not occassionally. The gore is good (stabbings, breast and eye-gougings, an arm shot off), and there is a lot of (good) female nudity. The music and the scenery is also pleasant. Hats off to Lenzi for that suspenseful plane landing at the beggining of the film. Recommended.

First off, let me say that this is as solid of an 80's Italian Horror flick as you can find. I will skip the synopsis as i'm sure that is already the easiest info to find on this page. Basically, this is not your typical 'zombie' flick. It actually at times feels more like an action/horror flick than a 'zombie' one. Initially, these are victims of a radioactive spill who go on a killing/cannibalistic rampage, rather than people who have died and come back to life to feast on the living. Yes they do eat people and Yes those people come back to life to kill more. These 'zombies' do run and carry on enough intelligence to use knives, guns, etc...to kill their victims.

This edition of the DVD is the uncut version, so there are great gore scenes. I wouldn't say the gore is gratuitous when compared to other movies in this sub-genre, but it is a healthy amount. Sticklers to this genre, in other words, people who need thier zombies to be traditionally slow-moving and non-thinking, will not enjoy this movie. But if you have an open mind and are equally interested in a good mix of horror, action, and cheesy B-movie material, then this is a good buy for you.

I give it 4 stars because its a solid movie...it's not exactly BURIAL GROUND, but it carries it's own value. Surprisingly, the plot and story development is good material for a movie in this sub-genre. The ending is great, unexpected, and totally different from anything I have seen in movies like this, while at the same time being cliched in other films.

The reason this movie doesn't get the whole 5 from me, is that I feel it would have been alot better off as a more traditional Zombie flick. Not to be a stickler, I don't mind if the zombies can run and use weapons but these zombies were using weapons as if nothing was wrong with them. It's like they just have some kind of green algae on their face, and all of a sudden, they went psycho. They could have looked a little more 'zombied' up. I mean, I know that Umberto Lenzi didn't want to do stereotypical zombie makeup, but at least make them look more like that dead one on the military base with the worm coming out of it's eye. To sum it up: If you have about 20 bucks to spare and are in need of an interesting, reliable pick for when you have a few friends over to drink and poke fun at some good 80's Italian Zombie B-Movie CHEESE, then this movie is a necessity. I would, however, view some Romero, Fulci, Bava among others first to fully appreciate this one.

This underground movie is awesomely entertaining. The fact is most reviewers discredit the film thinking that it is about fast running zombies. This is actually not accurate.

Basic Storyline:

Based on a true historical fact when an Italian countryside Nuclear Plant disaster caused a small population of people to become infected. Now this movie was based on this fact ( see DVD interview with Italian Director Umberto Lenzi ) speaking in his native language ( subtitled in English ) and Lenzi expounds on this premis and makes the infected a raging horde of fresh blood seeking cannibals who need the new blood transfusions because of their own contaminated blood. The raging and evolving infected ones, growing in numbers at an alarming rate, create an apocolyptic hysteria over the city with the two main characters on the run ( a tv station reporter and his doctor wife ). For what this is, a fast-paced, italian-horror-blood-squirting-fest, this is definitely an entertaining movie to add to your horror DVD collection for sure.

Again these are NOT zombies, but rather nuclear-disaster infected-people-turned-malicious-cannibals.

Great music and interesting locations.

This film, as many foreign horror thrillers were, was edited down and re-named for American audiences in the 80's. Originally 'Nightmare City', a fast-paced and unusually entertaining Zombie-thriller from Europe, this version is to be avoided if you're a Zombie movie buff as I am. Deemed too sadistic for domestic movie-goers as were 'Don't open the Window' (originally 'Let Sleeping Corpses Lie'), and 'Dr. Butcher, M.D.' (orig. 'Zombi Holocaust') the uncut film is the one to seek out. As the film opens, an army plane lands and parks on a runway with no communication coming from the cockpit. Soldiers surround, guns raised in anticipation of any possible crisis, and boy are they faced with one. The door opens, and a wave of fully armed(!) horrifying Zombies disembark, beating, slashing, and biting any and all they confront. Only a precious few led by our intrepid reporter/hero can spread the news and warn the masses of the evil descending on the city. Structured like one of those 70's disaster films (but with Zombies instead of bees or tidal waves), this is a blast of a horror film.

my sister saw mel ferrar was in this movie and thought it couldn't be ALL bad. i saw mel ferrar and figured he was desperate for a job. guess who was right? okay.....it's total cheese, but sometimes that's what makes these movies watchable. my favorite scene -- husband and wife are running from the zombies in a car....they realize they need gas.....they stop at a deserted gas station....and proceed to go inside to enjoy a cup of coffee! they actually took the time to make it AND comment on how it's not the best because it's only instant coffee. if that's not a "b" movie moment, i'm not sure what is.

Director Umberto Lenzi may be of a similiar lineage as other Italian exploitation/horror movie directors, but he is in no way in the same class as some of his brethern. Mario Bava, Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci are generally considered to be the best of the best, but on a level or three below them are Jess Franco, Joe D'Amato and Umberto Lenzi.

I own many of all of these directors movies, some are ecxellent (Zombi, Suspiria, Black Sunday), some are ok (Death of the Twitch Nerve, City of the Living Dead, Inferno) and some are complete crap. We must file Lenzi's "Nightmare City" under the latter category. I really didn't realize that you could actually pack a steaming pile of feces in a DVD case but "Nightmare City" proves that it can be done.

I am not even going to go into a plot synopsis, or character descriptions as there really is no reason to when a stinker like this is being reviewed. The acting is atrocious, the dubbing horrific (in a bad way), the make-up/special FX amateurish, the sound is awful, the story is ridiculous, and the ending is a total cop-out.

This movie is about an hour and a half of wasted time you will not be able to get back. Waste not your time or your money on this movie. Instead get a six-pack of Labbats and watch a Fulci movie, you'll have more fun and have a better value for your time and hard earned cash.

It seems every zombie flick in the 80s followed the format of George A. Romero or Lucio Fulci and sometimes a little bit of both, but Nightmare City offers up a decent twist on zombie flicks, but not totally original.

Nightmare City while not one of the greatest zombie movies ever made has to rate as one of the most fun movies I have ever seen. When it comes to the career of Umberto Lenzi I wouldn't say he was a great filmmaker, but the guy does know how to create a fun time.

If you are looking for George Romero style zombies well you will not find that here in general. The best way to describe the movie is you take a little bit of Romero's Night of the Living Dead and a lot of Romero's The Crazies and you have Nightmare City.

These zombies are unlike most you have ever seen; first up the zombies can fly planes, drive cars, use guns, knives and axe and various weapons to stab their victims and to top it all off these guys don't walk at a slow pace they run full speed ahead.

The screenplay by Antonio Cesare Corti, Luis Maria Delgado and Piero Regnnoli won't win any awards for great writing, but it gets the job done I suppose. The concept is fairly decent; a radiation spill at a Nuclear Power Plant is what turns people into zombies.

What saves Nightmare City is the amount of action; there are very few slow moments. Like this movie or not I can't see anyone saying it was boring. The stretches in the zombie attacks are quite brief so due to that dealing with the script is a lot easier.

Considering the time this movie was made it's actually not very gory believe it or not. Don't get me wrong there are some rather gory moments. Body parts are being cut off, an eye being ripped out and zombies having their heads blown off. So Nightmare City does feature some gore. But in general most of the gore scenes are quite tame. Due to the fact so many people are killed there are more scenes with a lot less gore than there are with.

Your more casual fan of the horror genre will be impressed with the gore level, but the more hardcore fans might be a bit let down that most of the zombie action features only a little gore except for a few scenes. What I can say is when Nightmare City goes for gore it pretty much delivers on it.

There were some problems with the movie, which Umberto Lenzi explains on the DVD. He had some problems with one of the producers wanting a more Romero or Fulci style zombie movie. And that's not what Lenzi wanted to do. He also doesn't really refer to the characters as zombies, but later on he does. Go figure.

I can see how somebody might not see this as a zombie movie, but it does follow the structure of a zombie movie; though it does stray at times. Even though Lenzi sometimes refers to it as a zombie movie and other times he doesn't, it's still more of a zombie movie. Some people die and that's the end of them. Sometimes they themselves become zombies. That is the only problem the lack of a clear direction.

As I stated earlier Lenzi takes a little bit of Night of the Living Dead and a little bit of The Crazies and makes one hell of a fun zombie flick. As much as I liked the movie it's not one of the very best zombie movies ever made, but the zombies here are some of the toughest you'll find.

Umberto Lenzi isn't a great filmmaker by any means, but he's one of those guys that just knows how to craft a really fun and enjoyable movie. I would probably rate this as his best flick, but his most fun for sure. On the DVD Umberto Lenzi takes himself a little too serious. He tries to make the movie sound more intelligent than it actually is.

Overall Nightmare City is a fun movie that offers a decent twist on how a zombie movie is done even if it does take elements from other movies. There is enough action to hold the viewers attention. The highlight of the movie features zombies going on a killing spree in a hospital is the movies most memorable scene. The last few minutes, which are set at an amusement park, are surprisingly solid with some decent tension and a nice twist.