Nightmare City (1980)

[zombie no.one]

Amazing! I'm also a big Lenzi fan because of it. 

Me too. Though I've only seen a few of his other titles (the man directed 65 films!)
If you haven't already, check out ALMOST HUMAN. It's a very entertaining low-rent greasy crime flick. It's worth seeking out.

ALMOST HUMAN has recently been released on dvd by Shameless as a "fan edition" which judging by their "fan edition" of NEW YORK RIPPER probably means it will be the least censored version yet made available. might have to check it out

as for other Lenzi films I'd recommend EATEN ALIVE - funniest cannibal flick I've seen (unintentionally of course  )

[FatFreddysCat]

How much was cut from the "City of the Walking Dead" version? Cuz that's the one I have and it certainly seems to have plenty of blood N gore (eyeball gouging, breast mutilation, heads exploding, etc.)...so what am I missing??

Well, it appears that I will soon find out the differences between "Nightmare City" and "City of the Walking Dead" for myself -- because I scored a copy of the uncut Anchor Bay "Nightmare City" DVD from the public library (of all places!...seriously, I did a little happy dance when I found it in their computer catalog!)...I've only ever seen this flick as "City of the Walking Dead" so I'm stoked to see the uncut version!

The dollar-store "City of the Walking Dead" DVD that I own shows the flick's run time as 81 mins. (keep in mind, I've never timed it to see if that's accurate), whilst the Anchor Bay DVD sez the run time of "Nightmare City" is 92 minutes. So wow, there will be almost a dozen extra minutes of cheapo carnage? Cooooool.

The Anchor Bay DVD also features a bonus interview w/director Umberto Lenzi, in which I'm told he actually compares his film to Tom Hanks' "Philadelphia." Which means he's either extremely sarcastic, or completely batsh*t crazy. I can't wait to watch it and find out.  

[major jay]

I think what you'll notice the most is a great transfer.
It would be awesome if Blue Underground would release it on blu-ray.

[FatFreddysCat]

I think what you'll notice the most is a great transfer.

Watched it last night and oh yeah, it was glorious seeing a nice clean transfer of the film. Prior to this all I'd seen was my dollar-store copy of the US edit which was full of scratches and washed out colors...which, I'll admit, actually kinda enhances the sleazy/grindhouse vibe of the whol thing... but still, it was cool seeing this chestnut as it was originally intended.  

As far as the differences between the "City of the Walking Dead" and "Nightmare City" versions, nothing jumped out at me during "N.C." and made me go "Holy sh*t, I never saw that before!" So I'm gonna assume that the cuts/edits were minimal - a few seconds here, a couple more there, etc., etc.
I'm also gonna call Bullsh*t on the "81 minute" run time on the dollar store DVD I have, cuz watching "Nightmare City" last night didn't feel any longer than the last time I watched "City of the Walking Dead" a couple of months ago.

[major jay]

Raro Video is releasing this on Blu-ray on Dec 31st. The price is pretty steep though, and the only extra that's different from the DVD release is a fully illustrated booklet.
http://www.amazon.com/Nightmare-City-Blu-ray/dp/B00GD9GN6W/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1387457474&sr=1-1&keywords=nightmare+city+blu

[major jay]

Here's a review of the Blu-ray from DVD Talk, and it ain't good.
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/62524/nightmare-city/

What a letdown.
The credits on the disc don't say one way or the other, but this new high-definition presentation of Nightmare City looks as if it was tackled by LVR, the industry-worst post-production team behind Blue Underground's most disappointing Eurohorror releases. Nightmare City is extremely soft and smeary. There's no filmic texture whatsoever; just traces of CRT noise. In a botched attempt at dialing down that analog noise, the image has been heavily filtered, leaving it frustratingly video-like in appearance. As substandard as these screenshots may look to you, Nightmare City somehow manages to be even worse in motion. A few hues, such as the bloody reds and a brilliant blue swimming pool, make an impression, but colors are otherwise drab and lifeless. The muddy, murky contrast of Anchor Bay's DVD from 2002 is taken to the complete other end of the spectrum here, coming across instead as thin and insubstantial. There's not a pure black anywhere on display here. Even worse, the encoding is abysmal, with just about every background in the film littered with compression artifacts. Definition and detail are a considerable step up over Anchor Bay's DVD, but a newly-minted Blu-ray disc beating out a decade-old release hamstrung with one-sixth the resolution isn't exactly cause for a ticker tape parade. If we were comparing this disc with a DVD mastered with today's standards, I'd expect the differences to be fairly slight.

[claws]

Wow, sounds awful.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Nightmare City" is available on Netflix Streaming right now... imagine my surprise when I stumbled across it while scrolling thru the newest offerings last night!!

It's the original Italian language track with English sub-titles, which is weird, but I'll probably check it out sometime soon. I've only eve seen the English dubbed version.

Though I have to say, I actually kind of like the klutzy English dub because the English dialogue comes out so stilted and awkward that it adds a whole nother level of unintentional hilarity to an already weird flick!