Nightmare City | 
 enlarge | Director: Umberto Lenzi
Actors: Mel Ferrer, Francisco Rabal, Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter
Studio: Blue Underground
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.95
Buy New: $4.49
You Save: $5.46 (55%)
New (36) Used (7) from $4.49
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 57498
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dvd-video, Ntsc, Widescreen
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 92
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: RKOD581139D
UPC: 827058113991
EAN: 0827058113991
ASIN: B0012IV3SM
Theatrical Release Date: 1980
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW, Factory Sealed items direct from the Studios. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Quick International Airmail!
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Studio: Wea-des Moines Video Release Date: 01/13/2009
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 A different type of zombie movie! September 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
An airplane full of passengers heading into the city's airport has people contaminated with radioactive material turns into vicious bloodsucking cruddy-faced, fast-moving, weapon weilding mutant vampire-esque zombie monstrocities that start to attack the city and infect people with their bites. The only way to destroy them is clearly a bullet to the cranium, a jouranlist (Mel Ferrer) with his wife must flee the city of horror with mass hysteria pleaguing the big town.
Entertaining, wild and bizarre Mexican/Spanish/Italian Sci-fi horror action movie from Umberto Lenzi ("Cannibal Ferox"). This movie pratically created the fast-moving zombie subgenre that influenced "Dawn of the Dead 2004" and "28 Days/28 Weeks Later" with the similar infected beasts but these creatures are somewhat of a hybrid of mutant, vampire and zombie since they also drink blood like vampires due to the radition in their cells. The music score is awesome as there's alot of violence and gore in this movie including some cheesy exploding heads, the ending is a cop-out as many would complain but i think this movie is pure grindhouse cinema fun for anyone who likes the zombie genre.
This DVD is a re-issue of Anchor Bay's DVD with the same brilliant transfer and sound quality including the extras like trailer, featurette and bio of Lenzi.
Also recommended: "Grindhouse", "Hell of the Living Dead (a.k.a. Night of the Zombies, Virus, Zombie Creeping Flesh)", "Demons", "City of the Living Dead (a.k.a. Gates of Hell)", "The Toxic Avenger", "Night of the Living Dead (1968 and 1990)", "Dawn of the Dead (1978 and 2004)", "Day of the Dead (1985)", "Zombie Strippers", "Scanners", "The Stuff", "Dead Heat", "Akira", "Class of Nuke'Em High", "28 Days Later", "28 Weeks Later", "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (a.k.a. Living Dead at The Manchester Morgue)", "The Crazies", "Land of the Dead", "Diary of the Dead", "Undead", "C.H.U.D", "Lifeforce", "Return of the Living Dead Trilogy", "Cannibal Apocalypse", "Resident Evil Trilogy", "Night of the Comet", "I Am Legend", "The Omega Man", "Zombi 2 (a.k.a Zombie, Zombie Flesh-Eaters)", "Versus", "Bio-Zombie", "Night of the Creeps", "Wild Zero", "From Dusk Till Dawn", and "The Beyond".
 This Film Will Certainly Put You To sleep June 24, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Like a great number of his contemporaries working within the environs of the low budget/exploitation arena in 1970's Italy, Umberto Lenzi is a director with a competent degree of generic utility. It's perhaps most appropriate to view Lenzi as a journeyman director; his `giallo' productions such as "So Sweet...So Perverse", "Seven Bloodstained Orchids" and "Eyeball" are serviceable without being distinguished. His major contributions to the horror genre include two cannibal films - "Deep River Savages" from 1972 and 1981's circus of depravity "Cannibal Ferox", as well as "Nightmare City." Lenzi's efficient but workmanlike style left behind a cinematic legacy that lacked personality and any sense of stylistic coherence. This is perhaps why his contributions to Italian horror are regularly overlooked. The films of Argento, Bava and Fulci despite their myriad faults still seem to possess a sense of stylistic and thematic coherence. And it is perhaps because of this lack that Lenzi has on a number of occasions (as in the aforementioned "Cannibal Ferox") sought shock value.
"Nightmare City" is one such film that lacks any sense of coherence. It suffocates under layers of Fulci and Romero inspired polemics. The film doesn't seem to know whether to go all out in terms of its violence and gore or to adopt a more symbolic and allegoric approach. The results are uneven and unbalanced. The attempts to ape Fulci fail in large part to pathetic make up and unconvincing gore and its efforts at an allegory of the fears of radiation and nuclear factories are rushed and are quickly forgotten as Lenzi indulges in his customary profusion of topless shots. We see a multitude of buxom Italian extras killed in gory close up, as for the male victims; well they are killed with little or no fanfare. It is this sort of thing that makes the film boring and tasteless, it also undermines the screen action - suggesting as it does that for all their radiation riddled deadness the zombies are still horny and motivated by naked breasts.
The writing at times is particularly bad, especially at the level of characterisation. The dull lead played by Mexican actor Hugo Stiglitz goes from feckless TV journalist to gun toting action hero all too quickly. And his wife undergoes an even more bizarre character transformation; from a doctor pedalling all kinds of philosophical statements and living by rationality to a mindlessly superstitious individual that starts rattling on about vampires! This becomes too silly to countenance. But its not all bad, the zombies are energetic, intelligent and use any weapon they can get their hands on (a major influence on "Zombi 3" and "28 Days Later") and Lenzi succeeds in creating a palpable mood of despair and nihilism. The film also has an enjoyable cynicism and paints the military as being particularly ineffectual. However Lenzi shows no alternative to military rule, and there is no sense of a wider government. This brings me nicely on to the films ending, which is a nightmare within a nightmare. This seemed rather pointless and unnecessary to me, and a not a little cliched. It had been done a lot better in Ealing's 1945 production "Dead of Night", where it had meaning and purpose.
A solid three-star zombie flick June 24, 2008
"Nightmare City" is not your typical zombie movie. The zombies run, think, use weapons, feel pain and have brown faces that look like spa patrons wearing exfoliating mud masks. Bullets don't bother them but they scream in pain if they get a finger caught in a door. The weirdest part is that they zero in on women's breasts like guided missiles. The female breast has never endured such a prolonged assault as seen in "Nightmare City." Toss in some disco dancers, ridiculous social commentary and a cheesy twist ending and you have a truly inessential but entertaining way to kill 90 minutes. I watched it right after, and liked it better than, the more highly acclaimed "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie," but what do I know?
Gourmet Italian Junk Cinema June 8, 2008
Umberto Lenzi, the prolific culprit behind countless Italian trash movies, sort of started the "fast-moving zombie" subgenre 20-odd years early with this minor but fairly amusing outing. Formerly known in the USA as CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD, NIGHTMARE CITY owes more to George Romero's THE CRAZIES than to his zombie films, and leaves one with the impression of having just ingested the cinematic equivalent of Cheezy Poofs. For genre fans, that's OK, as there are plenty of far worse ways to kill 90 minutes, especially for a zombie film, for the lousy ones FAR outnumber the worthwhile ones. And, yes, this disc is yet another Blue Underground reissue of a title formerly released by Anchor Bay...good deal for those who missed it the first time.
 Exactly the same as Anchor Bay's April 18, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This review is for the Blue Underground DVD release of Nightmare City with some extended information to inform potential buyers. As has been said, this DVD is exactly the same as Anchor Bay's 2002 DVD release except it has a different cover to it. Even the text and images on the back of the DVD case are the same. The 2 extras are the same as well. Tales Of The Contaminated City, an interview with the film's director, Umberto Lenzi. Lastly, included is the original theatrical trailer.
So, if you own the Anchor Bay DVD and are expecting new extras on this DVD release, you're out of luck. It's exactly the same disc. But, if you've never owned Nightmare City, I do recommend it. (Plus, Blue Underground's DVD is cheaper new.) It's a nice change of pace with blood suckers instead of flesh eaters, super fast super strong zombie like creatures, able to fly airplanes, drive cars, and use garden tools to murder anyone in sight. Speaking of pace, the film is nicely paced, too. Lenzi did a good job on the directing in this picture. One nice touch is the use of a synthesized soundtrack, and early example of its use in movies.
|
|
|
