I thought this movie would be one of those movies with a seriously bad plot. The kind of movie whose plot is so bad it has to compensate for it by having blood, guts and gore. But I was wrong, mostly. The movie started with a journalist at the Airport, witnessing a bunched of irradiated ghouls killing police in a gory and cannibalistic way. The journalist then gets away and tries to report it. Some mindless entertainment was being broadcast with some dancers and one of the dancers complained about being interrupted. He started his broadcast but his boss cut him off and said no because a general told him not to. Sounds familiar with what is happening today? People watching mindless entertainment whilst the authorities only let the media report what they want the public to know? So the script and plot isn't completely mindless, I would even say it has relevance to us today. It even has thoughts on science, technology and human nature. Religion too. So it has an above average plot and script.Umberto Lenzi as expected crafts his movie with professionalism. So the acting and directing is also above average. It has some pretty decent tension too, not all directors are good at building tension. I have not seen many movies of Umberto Lenzi, but so far he has made an impression on me and I have a serious interest in his movies. That is the main reason for why I have watched this movie, although I wasn't expecting it to be any impressive. But it is, the plot moves along freshly, it has atmosphere, the music is interesting, the plot is interesting, you care about the characters (well, at least I did) and it has an air of freshness in it. Not original (it has scenes that were like taken straight out of 'Dawn of the Dead' and 'Day of the Dead'), but still worth watching with an interesting twist at the end. By the way, this must be where Fallout has taken its inspiration for the Ghouls. Irradiated humans turned into monsters roaming and killing. After all, the Fallout games take inspiration from Sci-Fi, Horror and retro movies.But still, the plot is still a little absurd. It has ghouls running around sucking the blood out of humans like some vampires. Also the contamination spread pretty damn quickly. It was as if the Ghouls knew what they were doing. Like as if everything was planned from the beginning. Even if it was, the chances would not have been very high. But I am suspending disbelief and approve of this movie. In fact I will say that I like this movie. I am looking forward to watch more of Umberto Lenzi's movies P.S. Italian directors love eyes. Especially for gouging.8/10

This film is difficult for me to review, because there are so many parts that work, and so many parts that don't work, and oftentimes those are intermingled with one another, so it's difficult to really explain it clearly.A big thing that did work was how the "zombies" were handled. I've heard the director wanted to go away from the George Romero staple of zombies lumbering around screaming "BRAINS!" at the top of their lungs, and he succeeds greatly. These monsters are well realized, and I would argue they elicit far more fear than "real" zombies. For one, they're intelligent: they attack power sources, cut off phone lines, hunt down their victims like a serial killer would, etc. For another, they move fast - and if I recall correctly, this was one of the first instances of fast moving zombies, long before "28 Days Later" or "World War Z" (though I'm sure some horror buff out there could refute me). Finally, they don't just bite into your scalp; rather, they use weapons. Zombies hack, stab, and bash in their victims, which again gives them more the feel of insane, unstoppable killers than just mindless undead. They even get downright sadistic with their victims, cutting off nipples and tearing out eyeballs, all while their victims still live.Another thing that worked is the panic and tension that erupts in the chaos of the zombie attacks is well realized. Sure, sometimes it turns into a case of extras running around aimlessly in the background (a bit like a Scooby Doo chase down a hallway), but other times it captures well the panic that an attack like this WOULD cause. When the zombies attack an area, I actually felt SCARED for the characters, and wondered how I would have handled such a situation.Then there are the parts of the film which DON'T work...One problem is the consistency of the special effects and acting. While the special effects are your standard fair for an Italian film of this era, sometimes there can be bloopers: eg., in one scene, a woman gets her head blown off, but literally a second later she has her head back, safe and sound. Also, some of the actors are better at doing the "Owe, I'm getting hit by bullets" motion than others. When people are shooting zombies, some of the actors remember that, even if you're impervious, there's a little thing called "kinetic physics," and a high caliber bullet is going to make your body move when it hits your flesh and bone; other actors, however, act like those little kids you knew when you played war, and who ran around like crazy even after you had "shot" them about 500 times. In scenes where people are clearly being shot at, and yet not even reacting to being shot at, it makes it more obvious that the soldiers are using blanks and not real bullets.Another major problem is the portrayal of the government forces. Now, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that all militaries are perfect, or that any one country has the best military in the world...but geez louise, I'm pretty sure even the worst army on this planet would have handled a zombie situation better than the government forces in this movie do. A lot of these soldiers just fire aimlessly at the zombies, then gawk stupidly when they draw near, permitting themselves to be killed. The most widespread gripe about the soldiers in this movie is that, even after they are told that these creatures can be killed by a shot to the head, literally NONE of them do that! Now again, I'm not saying every soldier in the world is a smart fellow, or the best shot, but I am pretty certain if you told a group of soldiers "Hey, you know those crazy monsters hell bent on killing you all, and your families? Yeah, you can knock them down flat by a bullet to the head"...well, I'm PRETTY SURE most of them would remember that, and try to carry it out to the best of their ability. This is, in fact, one of the problems with horror/sci-fi films in general: in order to make your monster/enemy more threatening/intelligent, you have to either work hard to try and make it believable, or you have to make your government/military forces incredibly stupid and incompetent. When a film does the latter, it doesn't do much except aggravate and annoy the audience.But by far the biggest thing that ticked me off about this movie was the ending. I understand the ending brings about mixed feelings, even from die-hard fans of this movie, but it absolutely ruined the movie for me. Basically, right at the part where the reporter's wife dies from falling from a helicopter...the reporter wakes up. OH! IT WAS ALL A DREAM! That's right - one of the endings they tell you in a fiction writing class NOT TO DO, this film does it. And to top it off, that day the reporter goes to an airport where...guess what...A RADIOACTIVE PLANE IS LANDING! Then the words "The nightmare becomes reality..." appear, and that's literally it. That's the end of the movie. I half expected a zombie M. Night Shyamalan to pop out of the plane and shout, "Ooooh, what a twist!" Some people have tried to explain that this is in reference to the movie's title (NIGHTMARE City, derp derp), but that just turns this whole thing into an hour- and-a-half pun, which makes it all even more dumb.Like I said, this movie has some cool takes on the zombie genre - I wanted to like this movie. Sadly, it has too many other aspects to it that either ruin the story, or just make it annoying to watch. If you love zombie movies, definitely give this one a viewing, though.

Of the countless Italian-produced zombie movies that came out in the late 1970's and 1980's, many of them can easily be labelled the worst of the lot. Nightmare City, a silly, gun-and-knife-wielding zombie attack movie directed by hack Umberto Lenzi, is certainly up (or down) there. With it's bland, beardy lead, nonsensical story, lazy plot devices and extremely dodgy make-up, Nightmare City is very bad indeed. But it just manages to squeeze a toe hair over the so-bad-it's-still-bad-but- bearable line and raises a few titters with it's ludicrous execution, and can also boast that it's not quite as bad as Zombie Creeping Flesh (1980).'American' news reporter Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) travels to the airport to await the arrival of a scientist, whom he is to interview following a recent nuclear accident. When the plane arrives, it is surrounded by the military when no-one responds or opens the door. After a brief stand-off, the plane opens it's doors and dozens of bloodthirsty zombies pile out and attack the soldiers with guns, knives, bats and teeth. Eager to report the outbreak, Miller is halted by General Murchison (Mel Ferrer), who wants to hush the incident to save face. When his television station is attacked during the filming of some disco aerobics programme, Miller must find his wife and escape to the countryside.Looking between a mixture of an out-of-date potato and a used teabag, the zombies here are much more human than your traditional Romero zombies, using weapons, moving at pace, and even clearly taking some sadistic pleasure when slitting a throat and carving a woman's breast off. As the film plods on, at a breakneck pace that somehow still manages to be boring, the make-up department seem to lose interest in the 'new' zombies and simply smear their faces with some dirt. But if Lenzi deserves credit for something, it's in keeping the violence inventive. There's eye gouging, stabbings, exploding heads and blood- drinking, and the fact that the gore looks absolutely crap makes it all the more fun.The other familiar Lenzi traits are there, recognisable from his large collection of bizarre giallo such as Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972), Spasmo (1974), Eyeball (1975), and Cannibal Ferox (1981). This means lots of boobs. Every female attacked by the zombies seem to have their tops torn off. Didn't nurses wear bra's back then? We also the obligatory wrinkly has-been actor (Francisco Rabal - who made three films with Luis Bunuel) fondling a beautiful European model scene. It's quite despicable film-making if taking seriously, which you simply can't, you can only try and enjoy this for what it is, a film designed to make money by spilling some blood and showing some skin. But even that is hard, as when the film finishes with a 'twist', you feel like you've had 90 minutes of your life snatched away from you in some cruel joke. Pure dread, but it's earned an extra star through sheer audacity.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Nightmare City is a low budget Zombie film done right! It knows what it is, and doesn't try to be anything but cheesy and provocative entertainment. At this juncture, many zombie films were being made; some of the stupid, some of them cheesy fun. Umberto Lenzi decided to add a little bit of a twist to his project. He made the zombies fast and relentless. This would be brought up again in the remake of Dawn of The Dead, but it was unheard of at this juncture, and I found it to be a bit refreshing in ways. The makeup is extremely cheap. The Zombies aren't all that intimidating, but all I cared about was the fun factor, and this has plenty of that. Hell. This movie takes a huge fad of the 80's (Aerobics) and we get a gore filled scene during an aerobics session! It wasn't afraid to be daring or different that's for sure. I have mixed feelings about the ending. All I'll say is the ending takes place at a fair of sorts. It was really quite original and suspenseful (Seriously) my jaw dropped at some of the creative violence, and one particular scene stuck with me. Then…something happened that took it all away. I won't reveal what it is, but I was a bit bummed out by what happened. You may feel differently, but you may see what I'm talking about. I was quite disappointed with it, despite that Umberto Lenzi redeemed himself a bit at the very end. Everyone is dubbed, and there are only two performances worth mentioning. Hugo Stiglitz (Dean Miller) Makes for a great reluctant hero. He had some crappy dubbing, but he was pretty cool, and also likable. Laura Trotter is a bit whiny as the wife, but she was fairly decent for the most part. Before I forget, gore hounds will rejoice at this movie. It's pretty violentFinal Thoughts: Aside from mixed feelings in the finale, I really dug this movie. I had a lot of fun with it for what it was. The action is constant, and I dug Lenzi's vision with this one. If you're looking for a entertaining Zombie film that comes from the 80's, check this one out!6.5/10