Nightmare City

US readers can rejoice as the nice folk at EC Entertainment have made the very welcome move of releasing Umberto Lenzi's schlock classic 'Nightmare City' on NTSC DVD. Whilst European zombie fans have been previously pampered by Italian Shock's gorgeous special edition PAL release some may wonder what would be the point of yet another version of this oddball classic? Simply, it's a lot of fun and here's why...

Umberto Lenzi's 'Nightmare City' (aka 'Incubo:Sulla Citta Contaminata') involves the ludicrous (but brilliantly daft) scenario of a plane full of zombies landing in town and then spending the rest of the film running around with guns, knives, axes etc killing and maiming everyone in sight (to the repetitive but cool beats of a Stelvio Cipriana score). Bags of fun here with one of the craziest dumb ass zombie rides ever committed to celluloid.

Often berated by some zombie movie fans as not only do the zombies run around at great speed with weapons in hand which goes against so called zombie tradition of the slow lurching gurglers we're used to seeing, but the films ending has been the ire of many viewers causing a love/hate divide in the films appreciation. Me, I loved the ending, yeah sure it's a bit cornball, but it gave me the excuse to go straight back to the start and watch the film over again - he he !!

Nicely directed by Lenzi, the film moves along at a great pace - rarely letting the viewer come up for air and the acting ,although not dazzling, is of the usual standard from this period, with folk like Hollywood veteran Mel Ferrer appearing and obviously hoping no one ever gets to hear about it (Ha, the last laugh's on you Mel). The effects throughout are very nice, with some great set-piece gory moments (though I still occasionally wish for more during some of the early attack scenes).

'Nightmare City' is a great little zombie flick that I can't recommend enough, and this release from EC (like its Italian Shock predecessor) is an absolute belter that does the film proud. The print on show looks absolutely stunning, a nice pristine widescreen format that puts the ghastly earlier Laser Paradise release to total shame and whilst earlier releases had their varying plus points (the Laser Paradise disc had a 2.0 soundtrack but burned on unremoveable Japanese subtitles and the Italian Shock PAL disc had a veritable smorgasbord of bonus features) this EC release has its plus points too!

First off the print quality is pretty much faultless and this is great news for US readers that don't have PAL player compatibilities. Sadly though the transfer isn't anarmophic but I can live with that and I'm sure many of you can too. Next up EC are going all out to try corner the global market with this release with a whole slew of subtitle options including subtitles in English, French, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish and Swedish - now this may not be a big thing for most of you (we English speakers can be very selfish) but I'm sure for our many readers in these countries this is a cool news that will enhance their viewing pleasure. And while there isn't as many extras as the lovely Italian Shock release there's still some cool bonus features to whet most folks delectations - first off there's two trailers for the movie, the first being the fun English trailer (which looks great here) and then there's the old German trailer under the title of Grossangriff der Zombies' (this one shows a fair bit of wear and tear but is still nice to see). Also included is a nice stills gallery that contains an extensive collection of video sleeves from all over the world as well as some nice lobby cards etc. I know some folk will still be wondering about the inevitable comparison to the Italian Shock release but it'll probably boil down to what format you can play and how much you're prepared to spend. This release from EC looks great, it's NTSC compatible and is a budget priced release - the choice is yours.

I've long (since my youth many moons ago) had a loving soft spot for 'Nightmare City' - it's truly bewildering schlock trash but it's a stack of fun. This EC release is a fine looking presentation and great way to enjoy the film if you're new to its oddball delights. Check it out!

Review by Alan Simpson