NIGHTMARE CITY

The film opens with a news reporter named Dean (Mexican actor Hugo Stiglitz) arriving at an airport to interview Prof. Otto Haggenbach. It seems that a melt down at the local nuclear power plant my have serious effects on the surrounding area, but Prof. Haggenbach is supposed to dispell such rumours.

As Dean arrives, a plane lands on the runway without authorization, and after some good ol' tension build up, out storms a gang of poo-faced radioactive zombie freaks. It turns out that Haggenbach is a big liar, and the radiation does have serious effects on people, mainly turning them into poo-faced zombies.

From here on out is non-stop zombie carnage. They attack a TV studio, a hospital, they rip off nipples, poke out eyes, perform cheesy stunts and mug at the camera. A major controversy over this film among genre fans is the fact that these zombies aren't the usual Fulci/Romero slow, clumsy types, these zombies run around, shoot guns, cut phone lines, etc, etc. Personally, i thought this worked well creating a sense of fear that you couldn't just run past them, they'd catch your ass, unlike the slow, clumsy Romero/Fulci types.

Lenzi of course handles the action very well, having lots of experience with war and crime films. There are also a few scenes of real tension like the one where Dean and his wife hide in a gas station surrounded by zombies, or when a group of zombies walk past them only a few feet away.

Maybe i'm just a crackhead, but i really think this is a well done, exiting and scary flick. Of course the budget shows, and there gapping holes in the plot on occasion, not to mention some unintentionally hilarious moments like zombies that scream like girls and the aforementioned "poo-face" make up jobs.

The make-up FX by Giuseppe and Pino Ferranti (who also worked on Hell Of The Living Dead) is as usual for their work, awful yet cool. The FX itself varies from okay (squib work, stabbings) to plain bad (exploding paper mache` heads). The zombie make-up design is uniformly terrible. Brown crud is slapped on the face of extras, maybe some blood here or there. To be fair, there are LOTS of zombies, and it would be near impossible to create unique make ups for each zombie, espeacially with the obvious low budget they had to work with. Like the old Roger Corman and William Castle horror flicks, the mosters are cheap and fake, but a lot of fun to look at.

I think people should overlook the flaws and enjoy a really fun movie.