Jul 03 2004
Movie: “Nightmare City” (1980)
“Nightmare City” (1980) directed by Umberto Lenzi.
Starring Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, Francisco Rabal and Sonia Viviani.
Zombie Film Rating: 
Summary: The movie starts with a television broadcast advising of a nuclear catastrophe, details are uncertain but it is believed the situation is under control, and a noteable scientist has been dispatched to investigate and report his findings.
Journalist at large Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) is given the assignment of attending the airport and interviewing this “Noteable scientist” in an effort to allay the fears of local residents. He is assigned a cameraman and off they go to the airport.
Meanwhile air traffic control has noticed an unidentified aircraft approaching the airport, the aircraft fails to identify itself, and instead makes an unauthorized landing. We learn it’s a Hercules with a military color scheme, but no markings.
The attendant police and military units surround the plane and attempt to establish contact with whoever is inside, and after some time the door opens and we witness the “noteable scientist” exit, and suddenly pounch upon a military officer and stab him with a knife. This starts a cascade of zombies from within the hercules, and soon the authorities are overwhelmed by these horribly burned, psychotic killers.
The journalist flees, reports the incident to the military and then attempts to convince his superiors that an urgent notice must be made to the public, warning them about the threat. His efforts are in vain however, and before any further debate takes place the zombies are attacking the television studio.
Miller now worries about his wife, and tries to stop her from going to work at a local hospital, his efforts are unsuccessful and he decides to attend the hospital and get his wife out of there.
Naturally the burned psychotic zombies are all over the place, and their attack on the hospital follows Millers arrival by mere minutes. After much carnage Miller and his wife escape.
The military, meanwhile, is clearly having problems containing the “incident”, and we are introduced to a few tertiary characters who contribute little to the overall story, except to emphasive the chaos within the city.
With no clear solution to the zombie problem at hand, and the military running out of resources the situation seems bleak. Miller and his wife end up at a local amusement park, where they climb on a roller coaster track to escape the zombies pursuing them. Fortunately one of the tertiary military characters arrives, and trys to pull them to safety.
Sadly, Millers wife tumbles to the ground, and suddenly he wakes up from a horrific dream. But is it a dream, as he (in a waking state) ends up at the airport waiting for the doors of a mysterious Hercules to open….
Critique: This was one of my first non-mainstream zombie films, and I still love it. The DVD includes a 12 minute interview 
with Umberto Lenzi, where he provides some information about the making of the film, and how he views it when compared with Romero or Fulci.
The director doesn’t view this as a “zombie film”, but fortunately I do.
The film is entertaining, well paced and despite some rather wooden performances it sucks you in. Zombie fans may take issue with the “thinking, running, machine gunning” zombies depicted in the film, but as the director explains they are irradiated insane humans, not zombies, and as such retain some capacity for thinking.
In so far as a zombie movie the basic zombie profile fits. Humans are exposed to radiation (instead of a biological agent), they mutate somehow and can only be killed by destroying the head (another common zombie element). They feed upon living humans and not each other, and their victims turn into zombies after death.
The zombies intially appear as pale humans, and as time progresses more and more skin surface is covered with burns. This progressive deterioration makes initial identification of a zombie difficult, especially as they possess some intelligence.
The final word? This is a great zombie film….even if it isn’t.