NIGHTMARE CITY (aka CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD)

Umberto Lenzi (often credited as 'Humphrey Humbert') is one of Italian exploitation cinema's most interesting (and prolific) characters. He is best known for his films in that most reviled of sub-genres, the cannibal film. His DEEP RIVER SAVAGES (1972, aka 'The Man From Deep River') was the forerunner of the sub-genre, whilst his later EATEN ALIVE (1980, aka 'Mangiata Vivi') was but a dry run for his completely insane CANNIBAL FEROX (1981, aka 'Make Them Die Slowly'), which is probably one of the most infamous films ever made and rounded off his demented trilogy. However, he was also one of the major players in the famed giallo genre right from the early days, and made many of the key films within it; ORGASMO (1968, aka 'Paranoia'), SO SWEET SO PERVERSE (1969), A QUIET PLACE T KILL (1970), OASIS OF FEAR (1971), SEVEN ORCHIDS STAINED IN RED (1972), KNIFE OF ICE (1972), SPASMO (1974), EYEBALL (1974, aka 'Red Cats in a Labyrinth of Glass', 'Wide Eyed in the Dark'). His gialli are characterised by increasingly crazy plots (particularly true of EYEBALL), even within a genre so famous for its lack of coherent plots. His gialli started out fairly sane, but as time went on his plots became more and more outrageous, and he constantly tested the boundaries of what an audience would accept, frequently going well beyond that point! The genre in which he was most proficient was the violent crime thriller in which he made what is probably the greatest example of this type of film, VIOLENT NAPLES (1976), as well as others like ALMOST HUMAN (1974) and THE CYNIC, THE RAT AND THE FIST (1976). He also made a quite notorious late entry in the slasher film genre with NIGHTMARE BEACH (1989, aka 'Welcome to Spring Break'). However, it is something of a surprise that Lenzi only dabbled once with Italian horror cinema's greatest asset, the zombie film. As everyone is well aware, Lucio Fulci (and hence George Romero) was responsible for the onslaught of Italian zombies, perfecting the style early on with his seminal ZOMBIE! (1979). As one would expect, lots of the other Italian horror directors working at that time would go on to dabble in the genre to some extent. Lenzi's only attempt came in 1980 with this film, NIGHTMARE CITY (also known as 'City of the Walking Dead' in the US). CITY was an Italian/Spanish co-production and hence it has two 'original' titles - 'La Invasi�n de los Zombies At�micos' being its Spanish title, and 'Incubo Sulla Citt� Contaminata' being its Italian name.

Mexican actor Hugo Stiglitz plays a TV journalist called Dean Miller, who is sent to cover an alarming incident - there has been an accident at a nuclear power station and the scientist in charge is expected to arrive at an airport for a briefing. Miller arrives with his TV crew as the plane comes in to land. Something is wrong - the pilot is not answering the air control operator, and when it lands it is eerily quiet with no sign of life. The military, who are waiting to escort the scientist, approach the plane. After a tense interval, the door slides open and out comes the scientist. However, something is strange about him, and he does not respond to the military chief's questions. Suddenly he pulls out a knife, grabs the nearest soldier and starts attacking him. Out rush a horde of other zombies, sprinting towards the soldiers and attacking them. Miller's crew films this in horrified panic, before making a timely exit. We learn that Miller's wife (Laura Trotter) is a nurse at a local hospital. We are also introduced to General Murchison (genre regular Mel Ferrer) who is in charge of the crisis. The zombies over-run the TV station in a great scene involving an awful dance troupe being massacred. Miller goes on the run, saving his wife from the hospital on the way (zombies have attacked there too, leading to what is probably the film's best scene - an operating room is invaded by zombies and the surgeon hurls his scalpel at a zombie like a throwing knife! The scene is genuinely effective, though). Various meetings with zombies ensue, the film progressing at a fairly leisurely pace (which actually reminded me a bit of the middle part of Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, though this is about the only similarity!), taking in zombies in the countryside (echoes of NIGHT/DAWN OF THE DEAD) and a zombie priest (echoes of Bianchi's ZOMBIE III). Eventually, the two arrive at a deserted carnival, where they are chased by zombies to the top of an attraction. Just as the zombies are reaching them, General Murchison arrives in a helicopter to save them. Miller's wife gets hold of the rope dangled down to them, followed by Miller himself. The 'copter takes off and everything looks OK, but then Miller's wife loses her grip, falling back down into the seething mass of zombies below whilst Miller screams in agony…… However, that's not quite the end, sadly…

As you may have gathered from the brief summary given, this film's major difference when compared to the plethora of other Italian zombie films is the fact that Lenzi's zombies don't really act like zombies! They're dead alright, but they run about and attack people with guns, knives, sticks… whatever they can lay their crumbling flesh on! I've been trying to think of another zombie film in which the living dead are represented in a similar way, but am coming up blank (the recent Japanese zombie film JUNK features a single 'queen' zombie, who is similarly fast moving and intelligent, but she is an exception in that film). So, in this sense CITY is a unique film. However, it does not stand up at all well when compared to some of its more illustrious countrymen's efforts (primarily Fulci's films, though for some bizarre reason Andrea Bianchi's terrible ZOMBIE 3: NIGHTS OF TERROR (1979, aka 'Burial Ground') also has a veritable legion of fans)! The film starts extremely promisingly, with the scene at the airport. Watching it for the first time many years ago, I remember being amazed when the horde of zombies pours out of its doors, grabbing machine guns from the soldiers. "That's not what zombies do!" I thought to myself. However, it genuinely is a creepily effective opening scene - Lenzi builds the scene gradually, and as the aircraft stands quietly on the tarmac there is real tension as we wait to see what comes out. Sadly, as the Aurum Encyclopaedia observes, the best scene in the film comes first. The rest of the film isn't bad - things are kept moving nicely by Lenzi, a competent director at worst, and there are some reasonably effective gore scenes, but the film never really hits its stride again after the opening scene. The film's other trump card is its final scenes. These are filmed in a deserted carnival and are quite effective, though again Lenzi doesn't make the best use of them. The ending itself is rather difficult to discuss here without giving it away. Suffice to say that the film ends in a very old and very clich�d way, though I think it is strangely effective. Many people hate this ending, and funnily enough it is one that crops up fairly frequently in Italian horror films in one form or another - what does that say about the scriptwriters, I wonder? If you were wondering what caused the zombies, well it turns out to be a result of the nuclear accident which led to a need to kill for blood (as opposed to flesh (or brains)) in order to replace rapidly mutating blood cells.

One would expect the main attraction of this film to be gore, especially since Lenzi would go on to make the extremely gory CANNIBAL FEROX the following year. And yes, it is gory. However, the effects are not really very impressive and look decidedly dated and cheap today (the opposite is true of much of Gianetto de Rossi's work on Fulci's zombie films - these have rarely been bettered to this day). The zombies themselves don't look at all scary - the only thing that identifies them as being different to humans is that their faces (or part of their faces) are burned. This effect is not very well handled and the zombies look like they've just got a bit of prosthetics on their faces. Give me Fulci's crumbling zombies any day! The other thing that one can be forgiven for expecting from Lenzi is sleaze. Again, that is certainly present, but is not terribly impressive! An early topless scene sets the standard for the rest of the film, with funny scenes such as the one in which a nurse is accosted by a zombie who first rips open her blouse to expose her breasts, before stabbing her. Interestingly, Lenzi mentions in the commentary that he wanted many of the killings to have the feel of a rape, with a deliberate sexual overtone to them and that he thought of the zombies as 'vampires' rather than zombies (they need blood to survive, radiation meaning that their red blood cells are being killed off) However, he also comments repeatedly that the film should be a warning to us today, and is a very important film (the film was apparently inspired by a real-life event in Italy)…

So, NIGHTMARE CITY is by no means a great film - it's certainly not terrible, and it has some interesting ideas, but Lenzi could have done much better had he tried harder. Pretty sleazy, with a lot of slapdash gore, it will appeal to fans of Italian horror cinema, and more specifically fans of zombie films, who will probably have already seen the film. Anyone looking for a good gory zombie film would be better off giving this a miss and getting hold of one of Fulci's classics, or Jorg Grau's LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE (aka 'Let Sleeping Corpses Lie' amongst other things)…

DVD Specification
Original year of release - 1980
Approximate running time - 88m13s
Aspect ratio - Widescreen (2.35:1)
System - PAL (colour)
Rating - 16
Sound - Dolby Digital Mono (1.0)
DVD release - Japan (Italian) Shock.
Region Coding - Region 0 (Code Free)

DVD Extras
Theatrical trailer
Complete musical soundtrack
Picture gallery
Full filmography
Interview with Lenzi (50 minutes!)
Audio commentary by Lenzi

DVD Ratings (out of 5)
Picture - 4
Italian Shock DVD is a new DVD-releasing division of Japan Shock Video, and this is one of their first releases (the other being a new transfer of Fulci's rare THE SMUGGLER). This film was recently released on DVD in Germany by Laser Paradise as one of their 'Red Editions' (entitled 'Grossangriff der Zombies'). The print used for that release was taken from a Japanese laserdisc and had burned-in Japanese subtitles. It was also not the best quality transfer in the world and was only available for a short time before being withdrawn due to a rights dispute (with JSV perhaps?). Now fans of the film have been given another chance to get hold of a DVD release, and this time it's an infinitely more attractive proposition. Italian Shock give us a great full scope transfer of the film, which will come as a revelation to anyone who has only ever seen the film in its pan-and-scan incarnation (and on an nth generation bootleg at that!) The transfer is good, and the framing is correct. Colours all look correct, and the film looks as good as could be expected without a major Anchor Bay remastering. No anamorphic enhancement is a shame, but is par for the course.
Sound - 3
Dolby digital mono. Not too bad, with very little hassle or interference. Something I haven't really mentioned above is the very effective score for the film. It is by one of the genre's lesser known talents and is excellent, really fitting in with the film's theme and providing just the right atmosphere. When my girlfriend saw the first couple of minutes of the film (after the title), she immediately guessed it was a zombie film, just from the score! Anyway, it sounds great and the lack of stereo sound (one thing the Laser Paradise disc did have) doesn't really seem to matter.
Extras - 5
Wow! When I get a disc like this from a small company like I.S.DVD, I really don't expect much on the extras front. However, this has got to be one of the best packages ever, outside of the major US companies. The expected trailer is here, very good quality and letterboxed. Instead of the usual boring scratchy filmography, we get a definitive list of Lenzi's work, which scrolls down over a still from the film. Some surprisingly good and informative 'liner' notes are also here. However, we also get several other things… firstly an interview with Lenzi himself. I played this first, expecting a 5 minute discussion. However, I was astonished to find that the interview in fact lasts for almost 50 minutes! This is better than Anchor Bay ever manage, and is really to be commended. The interview itself is a little hard-going due to Lenzi's stilted English, but it is fascinating, taking in most of Lenzi's body of work rather than focusing simply on CITY itself. He even shows us his collection of tapes of his own films! Very good stuff, though the quality (and lighting) are a bit poor. Another unusual extra is the option to play the excellent score as an isolated feature. This is a surprisingly little-used option on DVD's, which is a real shame. It is almost unheard of on a DVD from a small European company like I.S. (the only one I can think of off the top of my head being VCI's BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE disc). Finally, we get an audio commentary by Lenzi! I was genuinely amazed when I read the list of extras on the main menu (which are animated with music, BTW) and the commentary just topped it off. Listening to it suffers from the same problem as the interview - Lenzi's broken English - but it's worth it as he is very enthusiastic about the film and is quite interesting to listen to. The commentary doesn't kick in for several minutes at the start of the film, and is somewhat intermittent throughout, but if I had to do one in Italian, I'd probably be a bit reserved! This release gets a deserving '5' for extras.
Overall Rating - 4
A minor classic of the genre gets an amazingly thorough treatment from new kids on the block Italian Shock DVD. Sadly, this disc suffers from the same cheap authoring technique used by Japan Shock Video for their recent PAL DVD's (NAKED BLOOD, WET ROPE and the GUINEA PIG doublebill). It is interesting that when JSV stopped putting out their discs as NTSC and started using PAL (as they should have been all along - Holland use the PAL system like most of Europe) the quality of their discs dropped dramatically (though having said that, I still found their NTSC 'Guts of a Beauty' disc very rough on this count). I found that the menu screens locked up seemingly at random, and the film itself froze at a point in chapter 12. This was on my Toshiba, so I tried it on a friend's (much cheaper) CyberHome system, and the disc played fine (as with the other JSV PAL discs), though there was still a bit of strangeness on the menus, and a noticeable jump at the point where it froze on my Toshy. It is a real shame, since the disc itself is an excellent package and I would have recommended it unreservedly was it not for this point. I have spoken to a friend with a Samsung and it locked up like my Toshiba. The message would have to be to get the disc, but make sure that you have a buyer should it not play on your machine (our US cousins should also note that I/JSV's PAL releases do not appear to work on APEX players)…

Film Tag Lines
"Now they are everywhere! There is no escape!" (US poster)

AKA
'Incubo Sulla Citt� Contaminata' (original Italian title)
'La Invasi�n de los Zombies At�micos' (Spanish title)
'City of the Walking Dead' (US re-title)

Alternative versions
Cut by over 3 minutes in the UK, and withdrawn shortly after the video nasties escapade in the mid 80's. Has never been available since. It was also cut in the US where it was released as 'City of the Walking Dead'. Available on Japanese laserdisc in the mid 90's, and also on DVD briefly from Laser Paradise in Germany (see above comments).

Movie Facts
Lenzi puts in a cameo appearance in the film as a TV anchorman.