2. Nightmare City (Lenzi, 1980)
You could be forgiven for thinking that number two on our list was another zombie film but, according to its director Umberto Lenzi, the film is a 'radiation sickness movie'. Coming just four years after the disaster in a small chemical manufacturing plant in northern Italy which seriously effected the small town of Seveso, the film seeks to address the effects of that and other such disasters and also has a decidedly anti-military/anti-nuclear message. The film, to be kind, is a mess. The plot is all over the place and it's very hard to keep track of what exactly is supposed to be going on. Despite this, the film can lay claim to some innovation. Nightmare City was the first film to make zombies run, for example. None of the shuffling of Romero's zombies, these guys really go for you. This doesn't exactly make them any more or less scary (the poor standard of makeup ensures that you can't take them seriously to be begin with) but it is worth remembering. The film stars Mexican actor Hugo Stiglitz and Tarrantino is such a fan of him and this film that he named a character in Inglorious Basterds after him. Nightmare City is worth getting a hold of so long as you don't try to make sense of the plot.