Incubo sulla Città Contaminata (A.K.A. Nightmare City) (1980)

Nightmare City was one of those film that I was just dying to see. Often due to these high expectations the film turns out to be a disappointment. For a while I was afraid that this was the case at Nightmare City too but luckily I can say that at the end of this film a good amount of my wishes were fulfilled.

An airplane that was exposed to radiation crash lands. Out of the wreckage, 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.

Luckily there isn't a very long build up. The infected people, according to Quentin Tarantino Umberto Lenzi is not amused when you call his film a zombie film, turn up rather soon and immediately attack. The make-up of the infected people looks very low-budget and very cheesy, just the way I love it! Luckily it didn't look as bad though as I read on the internet. That doesn't go for the gore though. It looks like Umberto Lenzi had one mission: get the highest bodycount possible. And i'm down with that except when the quality of the gore is poor due to the high bodycount. And that is exactly what happens here. In just a couple of seconds/minutes there are so many kills following one another that they all look pretty poorly done. There are barely any scenes that really take the time to show some cool gore. To often it's of a level ''Tube of blood on backside of knife'' and that is a shame. Especially when you think of all those great Italian 80's which all featured amazing looking gore. 

Than the cast..... Originally Umberto Lenzi wanted Franco Nero, western legend who plays the lead in the original Django, for the lead. Lenzi's delusions got swept away pretty quickly though by the producer who delivered Mexican cult-actor Hugo Stiglitz to Lenzi. Lenzi didn't like it for one bit. And of course, Stiglitz is not Franco Nero and he isn't a great actor either but he does have some decent screen presence and he is a cool character. Actually it's acted pretty well by Stiglitz, very sober and not over the top. There is also Mel Ferrer, who I only knew from Eaten Alive (1977) but who also played in bigger productions. The rest of the cast is pretty much filled with smoking hot Italian chicks, and there is nothing wrong with that.

The first hour is a bit hard to go though due to the not amazing gore but the last 20/30 minutes are so great that I just love this film. There is also a great soundtrack but it is unfortunate that Nightmare City doesn't have the sleazyness that many other Italian 80's horrors had.