City of the Walking Dead (1980)

When one is discussing “City of the Walking Dead”, the conversation typically does not center on the film as being good or bad (ten minutes into the thing you can tell it’s going to be a real pisser), but whether or not it actually belongs in the “zombie” category of films along with say, “Dawn of the Dead”, etc. And I might as well add if you are sitting around “discussing” the merits of this film, boy do you have problems.

Get a load of this “plot” if you will, and you’ll see what I mean. It seems there has been some sort of nuclear accident that has triggered a massive radiation leak (the flick is never specific as to where or how this happened…it just did), which has infected a large number of people thus turning them, of course, into bloodthirsty creatures who need to replenish their cells with human blood. You expected something different maybe?

The film opens up with a reporter type (the main ah, “hero” of the film) covering the radiation leak story at a local airport. A top scientist is set to arrive discussing the accident, one whom was reportedly at the scene when it happened. While waiting for the scientist dude to arrive, an unmarked plane makes an unauthorized landing at the airport. With security surrounding the plane and our reporter waiting to see what is going to happen, the standoff ceases when the scientist guy opens the cockpit and steps out to greet everyone…with a big sharp knife! Oh no! Soon the whole plane is emptying dozens of zombies infected from the leak and we get to see they are not of the usual undead variety. These are not your typical “just returned from the grave” type who just moan and shuffle around, no sir, these zombies are radioactive killing machines who run, fire guns, and are quite skilled with practically any sharp instrument capable of tearing a little human flesh. Soon the airport security is slaughtered and the reporter and cameraman, after sitting and watching the whole event, brilliantly decide it might not be safe for them to stick around. The rest of the flick centers on our reporter trying to get in contact with his doctor wife, various military personnel sitting around and talking about the problem of the zombies while never exactly doing a single thing about it, and zombies attacking various dipshits who are all so stupid and annoying they of course need to be killed in the most gratuitous ways possible. Getting back to the “are these zombies or not” topic, the initial zombies are called “radioactive supermen” by the military, and are talked about as if they are just infected and not actually dead. On the other hand the victims of these radioactive mutants all inexplicably return from the dead, another by product of that damn radiation I guess. And as you might have guessed the only way to kill em’ is to aim for the brain, which as we all know is the only way to kill a zombie. Draw your own conclusions.

Getting back to the actual merits, or demerits of the flick, the acting and dialogue here is just extremely lousy. Not that I was not expecting any academy awards or anything, but these elements just seemed worse than usual here. Get a load of this little line of brilliance uttered by our reporter’s wife, as they are about to take refuge in a nearby church, “if they really are vampires, then they can’t enter the house of god”. Of course, shock of all shocks, the priest is also a radioactive zombie…bet you did not see that one coming huh? The f/x is also incredibly lame, half the time zombies slit throats that never draw blood, and the zombies still try to suck away! The f/x is usually the saving grace in these flicks but here it all is rather pathetically done. The zombie makeup is also rather shitty, everyone looks as if they have spoiled cottage cheese or something smeared on their face. The budget be way, way low here friends. Lame as this flick may be, there is one scene that needs to go down as one of the best in Italian cinema. As the zombies are running about and attacking various parts of the city, they just so happen to stumble upon a television studio filming a sort of European “Solid Gold”, complete with terrible dancers gyrating to even worse disco music. The zombies dive in and do their thing, with one dancer getting her nipple chopped off during the skirmish…sorta cool I guess. To summarize, “City of the Walking Dead” is a terrible film, but its hard not to watch this one and get a chuckle out of it. Things are just so bad that maybe if you get a case of beer and some buddies over you might have a wee bit of fun here. Just watch out for the ending, it sort of summarizes the whole film’s line of thinking…incredibly stupid.