Nightmare City (1980)

An airplane exposed to radiation lands, and blood drinking zombies emerge armed with knives, guns and teeth! They go on a rampage slicing, dicing, and biting their way across the Italian countryside.

Director:

Umberto Lenzi

Writers:

Antonio Cesare Corti (as Tony Corti), Luis María Delgado (as José Luis Delgado)

Stars:

Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Maria Rosaria Omaggio

Cast

Credited cast:
Hugo Stiglitz	...	Dean Miller
Laura Trotter	...	Dr. Anna Miller
Maria Rosaria Omaggio	...	Sheila Holmes
Francisco Rabal	...	Major Warren Holmes
Sonia Viviani	...	Cindy
Eduardo Fajardo	...	Dr. Kramer
Stefania D'Amario	...	Jessica Murchison
Ugo Bologna	...	Mr. Desmond
Sara Franchetti	...	Liz the Maid
Manuel Zarzo	...	Colonel Donahue (as Manolo Zarzo)
Tom Felleghy	...	Lieutenant Reedman (as Tom Felleghi)
Pierangelo Civera	...	Bob
Achille Belletti	...	TV Station Technician
Mel Ferrer	...	General Murchison
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Edmund Purdom	...	Voice

Storyline

In a nameless European city, a local reporter and his doctor wife try to escape from hordes of blood thirsty zombies, undead people exposed to nuclear radioactivity, while the military leaders fight a losing war of attrition against the relentless atomic zombies.

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Plot Keywords:

soldier | stabbing | slaughter | doomsday | hell on earth | 

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Taglines:

Now They Are Everywhere! There Is No Escape!

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Italy Spain Mexico

Language:

English Italian Spanish

Release Date:

18 November 1983 (USA)

Also Known As:

City of the Walking Dead

Filming Locations:

Barrio de Chamartín, Madrid, Spain

Company Credits

Production Co:

Dialchi Film, Lotus Films, Televicine S.A. de C.V.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Famed Italian stuntman and actor Ottaviano Dell'Acqua in a uncredited role portrays one of the zombie-like infected people who also is best remembered for his portrayal as the infamous eye-worm zombie rising from the ground and cover of Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (Zombie) (1979). His brother Roberto Dell'Acqua also stuntman, portrays one of the infected vampire-like zombies in a uncredited role as well.

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Goofs

When the helicopter flies over the large crowd of zombies in the park, a dog can be seen playing around with one of the extras.

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Quotes

Dr. Anna Miller: I'm tired. Really tired. And I'm frightened. We'll never get away from these... these monsters. What are we going to do?
Dean Miller: Alright. Nothing is going to happen as long as we stay together I promise you. What we've got to do now is get away from here as fast as we can.
Dr. Anna Miller: Let go of me. Why don't you face it. There's no place for us to go. They're we too will be killed. I don't want us to die I don't want us to but there's nothing we can do. They're everywhere...
Dean Miller: [...]

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Crazy Credits

The message "THE NIGHTMARE BECOMES REALITY..." just before the end credits

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Alternate Versions

The 1986 UK Stablecane video version was cut by 3 minutes 5 secs by the BBFC to heavily edit shots of exploding heads, neck bitings, a woman's eye and breast being stabbed with a spike, an arm removal, the elevator attack, shots of bloody wounds, and a woman's breast being sliced off with a knife. All the cuts were fully waived for the 2003 Anchor Bay DVD release.

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Connections

Referenced in Fear, Panic & Censorship (2000)

User Reviews

Goofy and amateurish

You can't honestly give any excuses for this movie; it's just plain cheesy. You could say that it's just a horror movie and it shouldn't be taken seriously, but that's a lame excuse. This movie is just not good at all. From the terrible makeup fx to the hokey dialogue, there's not much of redeeming value in this movie.

The plot itself is pretty humdrum. Hordes of the dead terrorize a big city while spreading their walking-dead disease to others.

The only interesting part of this movie is how it tries to follow several groups of people and their encounters with the zombies. Among the people whose stories are followed are a military major and his wife, General and his daughter and son-in-law and last but not least, a reporter and his wife. The best sub-story is that of the reporter who witnesses the start of the mayhem firsthand and attempts to break the story of the walking dead, while people turn a deaf ear to his reports. The reporter tries to stay alive and rescue his wife from the chaos. Hugo Stiglitz is great as the reporter kicks some major butt, especially near the movie's end. The rest of the substories that the movie oscillates between are boring and pedestrian though.

The "zombies" in this movie are decidedly some of the more active ones in movie history. They run, jump and even use weapons. Some of them actually look like living humans, except they have some ghastly scare. "City of the Walking Dead" was a badly chosen title; "City of the Running, Jumping and Scampering Dead" sounds more apt. You could argue that they are far more lifelike that the people in this movie, especially the military guys, who apparently are too damn stupid to follow the advice of their superiors and shoot the zombies in the head.

The movie isn't too scary at all. There are some genuinely creepy moments, such as when the reporter's wife fumbles around in the dark in a hospital and encounters one of the walking dead. That was one of the only chilling parts of the movie. The scene where the major finds his wife is also pretty creepy, although it was predictable. For the most part, the gore was nothing that hasn't been done better in other movies, although the lively zombies did make them considerably more vicious.

The makeup was really terrible. Most of the zombies look like normal humans, except for a little blood here and there and a crazed look in their eyes. It would have been best if the filmmakers went with that look for the whole movie, as the makeup jobs usually consisted of a few cheesy cast-like extensions and mud-like molds being added to creature faces.

City of the Walking Dead is a decent movie to watch if you aren't took picky with your horror movies. It has some decent action and some novel concepts that were extremely flawed in implementation. Otherwise, stay far away from this one. Furthermore, a word of warning: you will groan at the movie?s ending.