Umberto Lenzi Horror & Crime Comes To Blu

  Raro Video have just announced a couple of cool forthcoming Blu-Ray's over on their Facebook page and both are directed by Umberto Lenzi.

  Nightmare City (1980) is one of the many zombie/gore films that were cranked out in Italy following the huge success of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979). Starring Mexican actor Hugo Stiglitz as a reporter who's assigned to cover the arrival of a famous scientist at the local airport, when instead a military transport lands and gorges out hordes of oatmeal faced zombies who proceed to start tearing apart the local population. One of those "so bad - its good" viewing experiences with low budget make-up plus gallons of tacky blood & gore, the highlight being an attack on a T.V. station during a disco (or maybe aerobics ?) broadcast that has the zombies ripping apart performers while... well, it just has to be seen to be believed. Co-starring a slumming Mel Ferrer.  For the U.S. market it was titled City of the Walking Dead and the VHS release featured one of those great old fondly remembered video boxes.

   For all his low budget horror/cannibal flicks, Lenzi made some great crime films and Gang War in Milan (Milano Rovente 1973) is a good one - as a matter of fact, his first one in this genre. Packed with violence, car chases,shifting allegiances & amoral bad guys as two rival gangs attempt to control a prostitution ring.  Not as good as Lenzi's later efforts in this field, but still a good solid action movie (and it's got the beautiful Marisa Mell - always a plus).