nightmare city [1980]

this italian-spanish production was helmed by none other than the infamous pastaland maestro umberto lenzi. it could only be him. who else to blame for this mess. to be fair, i have a soft-spot for the works of lenzi. i own several copies of his films, movies that range wide from splatter to polizia to giallos. all of them require a certain sort of masochistic streak of the viewer. oh sure, part of the fun of watching lenzi's flicks is to groan in utter disbelief at the sheer silliness onscreen and to cringe in admiration and disgust by the balls-to-the-wall gore fx. in other words, i am that ideal viewer.

if contemporary audiences think that director danny boyle created the fast-moving zombies in the revisionist zombie pic 28 days later [2002] i say lenzi beat boyle 22 years earlier by not only making fast-moving zombies, but zombies that can operate machinery, use weapons, fire guns and organize themselves to create the deadliest onslaught of the undead unleashed onscreen. okay, technically lenzi's creatures aren't zombies but victims contaminated by radiation who chop their victims into pieces and then suck their blood. but for all intent these are fucking zombies.

curiously for a fairly rapid pace the movie lags quite a bit in places. instead of a satisfying narrative this film is built around a series of set-pieces. some of which are quite fine. there is the italian business of showing womens' skin and there is an attack on a bunch of dancers in a tv station replete with the most hideous idea of a disco track that is goofy sleaze. that's part of charm of this film. it lacks decorum and knows exactly what sort of dumb-ass movie it is and so lenzi relishes the hack.

the only complaint i have of this piece of celluloid crap is the star hugo stiglitz who phones in a performance so wooden i believe the man must've been pumped full of thorazine. in an extra on the dvd lenzi explains that stiglitz was not his choice but that the producers demanded stiglitz be the star of the film because he was huge in mexico. okay, but couldn't lenzi coax even a grimace from mr putty-face, cuz that fucker's mug is a stiff mask.

what could be infuriating for many viewers is the circular ending. recall the title of the film, nightmare, okay? sleep? dreaming? alright, alright, enough of that even tho the ending might seem like a cheap way to stop a bad movie from going on into infinity like a line in euclidean geometry if the viewer had made it far enough to watch the end credits more than likely that viewer has already check his/her brain at the door. what's one more leap into the preposterous among friends. lenzi is an artist of pulp and knows it and i think relishes it too. for that, i give him nine bows.