Nightmare City (1980) Umberto Lenzi

Nightmare City (1980)
aka Incubo sulla città contaminata
Genre: Horror 
Country: Italy | Mexico | Spain | Director: Umberto Lenzi
Aspect ratio: Cinemascope 2.35:1 | Length: 91mn
Bdrip H264 Mkv - 1280x544 - 23.976fps - 5.46gb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080931/

Airplane exposed to radiation crash lands. Out of the wreckage, blood drinking zombies emerge armed with knives, guns and teeth! They go on a rampage slicing, dicing, and biting their way across the Italian countryside.

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.