Really Awful Movies: Ep 66 – Nightmare City

Nightmare City, AKA, City of the Walking Dead is an Umberto Lenzi sleaze-fest with a great soundtrack and some very gory kills.

In this 1980 outbreak movie, a TV reporter (played by Tarantino fave Hugo Stiglitz) investigates what’s turning townsfolk into hideous creatures. Turns out it’s radioactive materials from a nearby reactor.

Soon, the city is overcome by irradiated ghouls.

Few films combine utter zaniness with such inventive and disgusting gore.

Some critics have likened this to a “zombie action film” as the undead here run like sprinters, wield axes, knives and guns, and can even be convinced to board a plane to create havoc in other time zones.

Tom Savini is in the process of remaking this one. Wonder if he’ll retain the loopy ending of the original.

Welcome to….Nightmare City!

Really Awful Movies: Ep 65b – Dead Alive

Dead Alive is bloody. Very, very bloody, and the brainchild of the one and only, Peter Jackson. This Kiwi production is a bloody good time.

A soothsayer foretells the pairing of a cute bodega worker Paquita and a middle-aged nebbish Lionel.

The latter’s overprotective mother Vera Cosgrove (Elizabeth Moody), spies on their date as they visit the Wellington Zoo, which features a very special exhibit: a Sumatran Rat Monkey.

The monkey is a hybrid creature, the offspring of invasive rat species getting it on with monkeys. Anyway, one of the creatures bites the overbearing mom, turning her into a crazy zombie.

Lionel tranquilizes her and keeps her in the basement, but not before she’s bitten and transformed others into mindless zombies. Soon after that, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.

A critic in Entertainment Weekly said, “Horror films used to be primordial spook shows, tapping midnight-dark fears. Now they tap bodily goo: rivers of blood, dripping limbs, eyeballs that go pop in the night..”

The climax is one of the bloodiest things we’ve ever seen. Check out Dead Alive. It’s one for the ages.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 65 – Horror-Rama 2015

We were honored to be asked to cover Horror-Rama 2015, the second edition of Toronto’s only all-horror convention. The brainchild of Luis Ceriz and Chris Alexander, Horror-Rama is a fun-filled weekend of guests, vendors, panels, screenings and parties. Bigger and better than last year, this year’s edition featured some incredible guests. A fantastic time was had by all!

In this podcast, you’ll hear interviews with:

George Mihalka – Director, My Bloody Valentine

Sybil Danning – Hercules, Battle Beyond the Stars, Howling II…Your Sister is a Werewolf

Linnea Quigley – Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Demons, Silent Night, Deadly Night

Ian McCulloch – Zombie, Zombie Holocaust, Contamination

Tristan Risk – American Mary, The Editor

Michael Berryman – The Hills Have Eyes, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Devil’s Rejects,

Debbie Rochon – Tromeo and Juliet, Slime City Massacre,Killer Rack, Model Hunger

Cherie Currie – Lead Singer of The Runaways, Parasite, Twilight Zone: The Movie

Corpusse – Musician

Chris Alexander – Horror-Rama Co-founder, Editor ShockTillYouDrop.com, Queen of Blood, Blackglovekiller

Enjoy!