Nightmare City (1980)

Nightmare City (1980)

Umberto Lenzi went out of his way to explain that Nightmare City is not a movie about zombies. This is a movie about fears of nuclear radiation contaminating man and sending them crazy. The whole idea of Nightmare City feels very much like a low budget World War Z but tries hard to put across its ambitious story-line and, whilst not perfectly successful, it’s still a respectable effort.

The storyline follows an airplane landing abruptly at an airport with some workers from a local nuclear power plant who run rampant around the city attacking people. In the midst of this a journalist played by Hugo Stiglitz attempts to rescue his wife and flee the infested city, all the whilst being pursued by these crazed maniacs destroying every location the journalist seeks refuge in.

The weakest part of Nightmare City has to be the makeup as it’s a little bit comical. That’s not to say it’s bad, but if you’re watching this film expecting Fulci-esq zombie creatures then you’ll be scratching your head as the foes in Nightmare City look more like they have dunked their faces into a pot of chilli-con-carne. Obviously the distinction between the foes in this film and zombies are that these men have been exposed to nuclear radiation and their skin is burnt.

Nightmare City is a cheap film that knows its audience. It delivers gory action and fun by the bucket load.  Certainly, Lenzi’s underlying message of the worries and concerns of nuclear power are paraded in full force, however, most who watch this film will be doing so for the gore and action. There are a number of notoriously sleazy moments of gore throughout the film that honestly don’t help the production that much. Instead feeling like they were added to generate conversations about the film. If these moments were removed the film would still be just as entertaining, yet would likely not gain headlines or the notoriety.

Hugo is good fun as our action hero running from place to place evading the crazed maniacs. We have numerous cutaways to other characters who are attempting to understand what is going on and evade the violence and Lenzi expertly layers in tension and excitement at every opportunity.  Laura Trotter is delightful as Hugo’s wife. Mel Ferrer turns up as the general who effectively struggles with the difficult decisions made to stop the spread of the mayhem.

Lenzi is a remarkable director. Taking on a wildly ambitious story with very little money and producing the goods. Certainly, the scope of the outbreak is merely alluded to and there isn’t imagery to reinforce just how desperate the situation across the city is. In Lenzi hands you never look for verification. This is a personal tale as Hugo rolls through location after location attempting to stay one step ahead of the crazed. The ending is inspired and might seem a little cliche these days as it has been stolen several times over the years.

I have known of Nightmare City for many years, however, it’s only recently that I have managed to sit down and watch it and was surprised by how enjoyable it is. A lot of effort was made for Arrow’s Blu-ray release as the original camera negative was damaged whilst in storage. Restoration efforts have been excellent and it’s understandable why such efforts were made as Nightmare City is something of the complete package with excitement and gore alongside everything that you might expect from an 80’s Italian exploitation movie while still having an imaginative and interesting plot line.


It’s Italian, it’s got a lot of different titles and therefore it has a load of terrific artwork.


As stated in the review, Arrow has released an excellent version, widely available. Not sure that a 4K UHD release will arrive anytime soon, especially as the original negatives are damaged.

If this is the best we can get, I’m happy with it. There are two versions on the disc, the original negative version, that suffered chemical decay, and an alternate undamaged reverse negative version, stick with the original and embrace the damage, it adds to schlocky B-movie feel.


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