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Friday, January 8, 2016

Nightmare City

Watched October 20, 2015

1980
Starring: Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Maria Rosario Omaggio, Francisco Rabal

A mysterious plane lands at the city airport, air control doesn't know exactly where it's coming from but they do know that a renowned  scientist is supposed to be on board. It's greeted by the police and military since they don't know if it may be aggressive. Once the doors open a hoard of zombies rush out and kill everyone with knives, axes and guns. The reporter who was assigned to cover the landing of the plane, Dean (Hugo Stiglitz) goes back to his news station and does a special report, but he is cut off by the military. They don't want to freak everyone out since they don't know exactly what the situation is. 

The TV station is currently running a crazy dance show on with dancers in tiny leotards. The zombies make to the news station and kill everyone. The military find a zombie corpse and figure the only way to kill them is to shoot them in the brain. These zombies love stabbing and cutting off boobs. Their makeup looks like lazy masks, some are better that others in detail. 

Dean, the reporter heads to the hospital to warn his doctor wife, Anna (Laura Trotter) about the zombies. He arrives after the zombies show up and kill a ton of people. Dean and Anna manage to escape in a small hatch back ambulance. They drive off to the countryside as they don't really know what to do.

There is a subplot with the sculptor wife of one of the military guys. Introduced as they are making out at their home, he is called away to deal with the zombie crisis. Once he realizes what is happening he calls his wife to tell her to lock the doors and don't let anyone any. Not to much later she is tricked by a lawnmower running on its own in her yard, she goes outside and leaves the door open for a second. This lets some zombies into her home that later attack her and her friend.

Dean and Anna run out of gas and stop at a rest stop with a snack shack. It doesn't seem like anyone is there but they do discover a bloody ax. They take their time at the snack shack and make instant coffee, then the zombies show up and try to take their car. Anna and Dean blow the car up with a molotov cocktail to kill the zombies, then they run to an amusement park. But the park has already been attacked by zombies. Dean and Anna find a jeep, but then are found by the zombies. They climb to the top of a roller coaster and are saved by a general in a helicopter, but the wife has a hard time climbing the rope and she falls. The reporter wakes up and thinks its all a dream until it comes true and we watch the beginning footage again. It was not a dream but a premonition.

 Zombies aren't particularly my favorite horror monster but this group are some of the toughest, smartest zombies I've seen in a long time. All the military are terrible at shooting them but the zombies are great at killing. How the zombies are created in the first place isn't clearly explained, they may have flown over some toxic waste. I enjoyed that the women weren't completely weak, they often could fight off the zombies fairly well. In spite of the some positives, this very low budget film is still pretty tough to get through. The zombie make up is very poor and inconsistent between characters. Plus Dean waking up and thinking it was a dream only to have to be shown the first ten minutes all over again was pretty tough.

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