An old-fashioned monster/disaster film hybrid about a military experiment gone awry. David Warbeck (as Captain Kirk!) and Janet Agren hunt a contaminated mutant that terrorises a small English town. While the government is preparing to close off the area and annihilate its population as a preventive measure, the monster enjoys itself attacking school boys and a cinema audience. Finally, it's Warbeck and Agren against the unkempt troublemaker battling it out in the sewers.
This trashy Italian-Spanish coproduction is a pretty tame and in a way anachronistic effort, especially when compared to the visceral zombie munchers and bloodthirsty slasher films that ruled the cinema of that particular era. It almost looks as if it came 15-20 years late. No, this is no hyperactive NIGHTMARE CITY, it's a rather dull, slowly paced and disjointed affair. Yet, you certainly can have fun with it for what it is. There's the usual unintentional humour that accompanies disaster films which want to show the epic dimensions of their plot but can hardly scramble up money for decent stock footage. Gotta love that "BBC Television Central Generator" the military turns off at one point. Considering the obviously painfully low budget the technical credits could have been a lot shabbier - there, I said it. I actually liked Marcello Giombini's score and Giovanni Bergamini's photography. Longtime Fulci collaborator Vincenzo Tomassi must have spliced together more murderous mayhem throughout his career than any other editor walking the earth. The monster make-up is seen only very briefly and its not too bad, either - Delirium magazine mentions that Warbeck fittingly nicknamed the film SEWER ZOMBIES in interviews. Warbeck never fails to entertain me no matter what piece of schlock he's in, no exception here. If only Ricci and his writers had injected a bit more enthusiasm and verve into their film to make it all a little more coherent and worthwhile.
I got the Pront VHS which is good quality and slightly letterboxed. It's a bit dark in the night time and sewer scenes but probably that's the way the film was shot in the first place. Wouldn't mind upgrading to a decent dvd, though. Unfortunately, as I understand it, the only release so far is a poor quality FS transfer as part of a Mill Creek movie pack. Anyone got that? Come on, this film while certainly no classic deserves better!
