La contamination

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.

disclaimer: obviously, if you don't have a pre-existing love for zero-budget Italian horror, this won't be your cup of tea.

But if you do! My, what a treat! I overlooked this film for years because I confused it with "City of the Living Dead." I otherwise exhausted the genre's offerings. When I realized I hadn't seen this one, I was very excited, but I didn't expect much. I was in for a pleasant surprise.

Ugh, I'm no good at paragraph format.

The Pros: 1. The title, "City of the Walking Dead," is appropriate. This really is a city-wide infestation. This is not a board-up-the-windows movie. The scale is epic. So often, low budget zombie films restrict themselves to a few characters on a farm or something to save money. This one doesn't. I can't imagine how he was able to use some of the locations. (Actually, I suppose the title isn't quite appropriate, because the antagonists are neither walking nor dead. They run, and they're sort of still alive.)

2. Breasts are present.

3. I usually don't like zombies that deviate from Romero's mold, but Lenzi takes a risk and scores. These creatures combine the hypnotic element of Romero's zombies with the overwhelming danger of running zombies. According to an interview on the DVD, Lenzi did not want to just do another Romero rip-off, and insisted on coming up with his own sort of creature. He did it well.

4. For the first 2/3 of the film, the characters are sufficiently believable for the viewer to care about them. For example, a reporter finds himself in the middle of the zombie outbreak, and desperately tries to get a hold of his wife, a doctor, who can't be reached because she's in surgery. This is a realistic, human element absent from most films in the genre.

Cons:

1. 2/3 of the way through, it kind of falls apart. The characters who haven't died reveal themselves to be one dimensional after all.

2. The special effects are really inconsistent. Sometimes killings are mimed bloodlessly. In other scenes, heads explode.

3. The soldiers are pathetic.

In short, highly recommended.

While not to be entirely dismissed as drivel, Lenzi's would-be zombiefest known as NIGHTMARE CITY nonetheless comes off as trying to be too different, too "off-the-beaten-zombie-path", and as result, ends up falling flat in an unsatisfying mix of missed opportunities.

Instead of going with "living dead"-style zombies (i.e. lumbering oafs) Lenzi - against producers wishes who wanted basically a Romero-style-clone - instead argued for and got his wish of the 'zombies' simply being victims of a nuclear radiation accident. All the 'creatures' become supermen of sorts - with heightened strength etc. - not to mention retaining their human faculties of running, driving, being able to fight with weapons etc.

As a result though - pretty much all suspense is thrown out the window, as the movie quickly bogs down into a violent and graphic game of hide and seek. The action is intense (and the blood and gore plentiful) but the 'creatures' or victims simply look like poorly-designed Halloween costume party attendees, who - after realizing they are late for their scheduled gathering - grabbed whatever they could out of their fridge and slapped it on their faces. The result is an unconvincing and inconsistent mess of effects that underwhelms the viewer. Some victims have little makeup, others are nearly indistinguishable under piles of green and red facial clay, (yet ALL sneer menacingly at the camera) and ALL are out for the blood of their next human victim (the creatures need blood to regenerate their cells to keep living. As a result, their victims in turn become creatures as well).

While I applaud Lenzi for at least attempting something different (in an interview on the disk, he explains how he wanted the film to be viewed as an environmental warning etc.) it comes down to the simple fact that the movie ends up failing - the zombies move too fast to be truly creepy and come off as poorly-dressed terrorists from a bad Chuck Norris movie - and basically plays out as a b-level gore bore, weaker on the gore, heavier on the B-bore.

While NIGHTMARE CITY may not be totally rank, let's say ya might wanna drink that milk today - know what I mean?? As in, it smells a little funny - not totally spoiled, but nowhere near fresh-enough to serve to guests. Feelin' lucky??

Recommended for genre completists only.

Better known for his jungle cannibal opus "Make Them Die Slowly", Lenzi has here a much more accomplished and entertaining gut muncher.

On an unassuming day, a nuclear scientist is supposed to arrive with important research. His plane breaks flight patterns and lands unannounced. When authorities go to investigate, they find all the people on board are infected with strange kind of radiation poisoning and have turned into violent, cannibalistic zombies. The zombies then begin attacking any and every one in sight; hacking, shooting and eating all they can. Escaping the city is the only hope.

Coming out in 1980, this was pretty late in the cannibal/zombie movie cycle. Fortunately, Lenzi changes up the formula just enough to keep things from being stale. The zombies are are fast, intelligent and have no problem utilizing tools and weapons. Lenzi also ad hears to just enough genre clichés to keep fans happy. There is blood and gore aplenty, random flashes of nudity and some wonderfully cheesy dialogue.

On the technical side, the film is right on par with other films in the same category. Acting ranges from to OK to plain bad, lighting and sound get the job done but never excel, and the writing works well enough to move from point A to point B. One nice element is the pacing, which is refreshingly brisk and free of clutter.

Over all, this is one of the better made and more amusing of the cannibal/zombie films from days gone by. Genre fans should check it out.

7/10

Despite the atrocious dubbing and the poor makeup effects, this is an extremely enjoyable zombie flick, with a unique "mood" that perhaps only an Italian production like this one could have captured. The mass attack sequences (which must have been great fun to shoot for the people involved, especially the "zombies") are all standouts. (***)