Incubo sulla città contaminata

Digitmovies issues on CD the complete OST in full stereo by Stelvio Cipriani for the movie “Incubo sulla città contaminata" (aka "Nightmare City"). It was directed in 1980 by Umberto Lenzi (“Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro", "Cannibal ferox") starring Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, Francisco Rabal, Mel Ferrer, Sonia Viviani. The TV reporter Dean Miller (Stiglitz) goes to the airport to interview a well-known scientist, where he assists the emergency landing of the plane on which the scientist was travelling. A few seconds after the area has been surrounded by the military, the door of the plane opens and the scientist and a multitude of disfigured men get out, who attack and kill both civilians and military with unprecedented ferocity. Soon the town is invaded by monstrous men who kill anyone in their path. Miller, along with his wife (Trotter), who works at the hospital, discovers that the murderers are men contaminated by a nuclear radiation and that to survive they must feed on blood, because the radiations destroy the cells that must be constantly regenerated. The city is completely under siege from the creatures, and the military is unable to resolve the situation. The journalist and his wife escape from the city, but also in the countryside they are attacked by contaminated people. At the time of succumbing, the reporter wakes up terrified in his bed and realizes that he had had a nightmare, but when he goes to work he gets into the same position as that of the dream, now he finds himself at the airport in the same situation ...and the nightmare becomes reality. With this cryptic sequence closes Lenzi's film. "Incubo sulla città contaminata” was part of the series of films made in Italy in the early 80s in the mainstream horror-splatter genre which had started in 1979 with "Zombi 2" by Lucio Fulci. At that time many horror and science fiction movies full of violence and blood emerged in Italy, with special effects created by true artisans of the special effect department such as Giannetto De Rossi and Maurizio Trani. Among the films with sci-fi elements should also be mentioned "Alien 2 sulla terra" by Ciro Ippolito and "Contamination" by Luigi Cozzi, in which we are witness of an explosion of human bodies and various mutilations with a great deal of blood. Noteworthy in the horror genre are also Fulci’s bloodthirsty masterpieces"Paura nella città dei morti viventi" and "L'aldilà". Even directors who until a few years before had served gothic horror adapted themselves to the needs of the public, one of them for example Antonio Margheriti who made "Apocalypse domani" where a group of Vietnam veterans become cannibals. With “Incubo sulla città contaminata" Lenzi deviates considerably from the Fulci zombie movies, for the fact that the slaughter is accomplished not by living dead, but by people contaminated by radiation, even if the modus operandi to eliminate the monsters is the same as that of the zombies. In fact, the director has stated several times in various interviews that the monsters in his film are not zombies. A curiosity: in 1989 Umberto Lenzi made a horror film called "Le porte dell'inferno" (aka "Hell's Gate") in which he does a tribute to his “Incubo sulla città contaminata" when the events again happen in a dream of the protagonist and in the end …the nightmare becomes reality. In 1980 Cinevox Records released a 33 rpm LP (TI 8005) with ten selections in stereo (23:43) prepared by the composer himself (including the song "I'll find my way to you" with words of Hal Shaper and performed by Grace Jones, already written for the 1976 film "Quelli della calibro 38"). This OST had been reissued for the first time on CD in 1997 by the German label Lucertola Media (LMCD 010) (duration 49:04). For our CD we had access to the master tapes in stereo kept in good condition in the archives of Cinevox which, besides the album master, have allowed us to assemble this final CD presentation with restored sound and a total time of 55:08 minutes. Stelvio Cipriani has written a perfect OST to describe the scenes of violence on the border of splatter, creating electronic themes which alternate suspense and mystery moods with funk and rock rhythmics and which on the screen create a synergy with the images of Lenzi and on disc generate particular emotions for the listener.