The New York Ripper

Though reviled by even some of the most ardent Fulci supporters, LO SQUARTATORE DI NEW YORK is actually one of the Italian maestro's best works. The film belongs to the Italian "giallo" genre, a brand of thriller which emphasizes flashy murder scenes over pedantic police investigations, and in some ways it is the giallo to end all gialli. Certain scenes are so mean spirited and graphic that it is difficult to watch, but of course this is precisely what Fulci has in mind. The emphasis on gore and sleaze creates an image of New York as a Hell on Earth that makes TAXI DRIVER look positively staid, and Fulci uses the story to make some harsh comments on American life. Specifically, the American ideal of being the best in a given pursuit is what fuels the murderer's rage. Those critics who believe Fulci to be an ardent Catholic, who feels that women who behave sexily deserve to be murdered, have had a field day with this film. Yet, these critics have failed to properly understand the film. Fulci is not an ardent Catholic (as NON SI SEVIZIA UN PAPERINO proves), nor is he condemning the women in his films. Rather, this is a film that paints a bleak portrait of human behavior. There are no sympathetic characters, and an air of hopelessness dominates the proceedings. The issue of mysoginy has no bearing in a film like this -- instead of being anti-woman, this film is anti-humanity. Sure, it is not a pleasant premise on which to base a film, but then, who says that films have to be pleasant? A fine, well-crafted thriller, with good acting, beautiful widescreen photography, and a terrific score by Francesco Di Masi. ***1/2 out of ****

Lucio Fulci's films – at least the ones I've seen – never make much sense. That's fine when you're dealing with a fantasy subject like zombies. But in a would-be 'proper' whodunnit thriller such as The New York Ripper, plausibility is important if the thriller element is to work, and hence if the film as a whole is to work. Unfortunately, old Lucio and scriptwriter Dardano Sacchetti fail to grasp even this most basic tenet of the thriller genre. The 'plot', such as it is, is ludicrous, and the murderer even more so. As most of you will know, he's basically a psychotic version of Keith Harris minus Orville, ie he quacks like a duck when he's slitting women's throats, or gutting them like deer, or scoring their naked bodies oh so slowly and precisely with a razor blade. Which kind of makes you wonder what the point of this odious little film is. It isn't in the least bit thrilling, as it's quite obvious who the killer is from about four minutes in. Oh yeah, I know what the point of it is. The point of The New York Ripper is to showcase the graphic and sadistic murder of scantily clad or naked young women. Apparently chief British censor James Ferman was so outraged by The New York Ripper when it was screened for the BBFC back in the day, that he ordered all prints of it to be escorted from the country immediately, like it was a load of toxic nuclear waste that might infect people by osmosis if they even so much as went near it. And much as it pains me so say it, he kind of had a point. Because this is a deeply repellent film. It has no redeeming features whatsoever. It is badly made, badly acted, the special effects are rubbish, the plot is rubbish, the whole film is rubbish on every level. And of course, it features a series of highly graphic, pointless, sadistic and truly misogynistic murders. I should imagine Ian Brady would have liked The New York Ripper, but I cannot imagine any normal, sane person finding anything to enjoy in this piece of nasty trash. I don't believe in banning films, but if any film ought to be banned this is it. At least Fulci's zombie films are entertaining. The New York Ripper is about as entertaining as a hernia. And Fulci's zombie films, despite being replete with gore, are so silly and over the top that the gore is never offensive. There is a long and (fairly) honourable tradition of 'splatter' movies, and the Italians have long been in the vanguard. But with NYR Fulci drags that splendid reputation through the mud. As a long-time fan of horror movies, I confess I watched this movie on YouTube out of sheer curiosity. I now wish I hadn't. It made me feel dirty, ashamed even. Maybe that was the point, I don't know. But call me old fashioned, aren't films supposed to entertain in some way? There's nothing remotely entertaining, nothing remotely artistic about NYR. It's just sick, plain and simple. The people who made it are sick, and anyone who 'enjoys' it is sick, and quite possibly a danger to society. Writing about another horror film, a reviewer said "to sicken and disgust is about as artistic as picking your nose in public". Preach it brother. ***** One deeply depressing footnote. According to what somebody has posted here, the US version of NYR "cuts out some sex scenes to avoid an X rating, but all the violence is intact". So the good old MPAA think its wrong to show women having sex, but fine to show them being tortured and murdered. What is wrong with the world?

...won't turn out to be a beautiful, elegant swan... The New York Ripper is Lucio Fulci's take on the 'slasher'. This immensely popular sub genre of horror was at its peak in the early 80's with series like Friday the 13th and Halloween. Italy's biggest gorehound wanted to make his entry in this genre too and The New York Ripper is the result. Well, it's more like a good old fashioned "giallo" actually. Those of you who are familiar with Fulci's work know more or less what to expect. Take the amount of violence shown in an average slasher and multiply it by ten...then you'll have an idea of the amount of violence Fulci puts in his movie. Same goes for the nudity and the sexual content. Explicit nudity and violence are more than ever Fulci's trademark in The New York Ripper. Like usual, plot and logic aren't Fulci's biggest concern...neither is suspense or atmosphere of any importance. But seriously, who cares...the movie has more than enough shock-effects to make it memorable and some of these nasty scenes have yet to find an equal...Ever seen a woman's nipple getting sliced in half? Or a broken bottle being rammed in a *??? And if you're not being too harsh, you might even say that there IS a decent plot!! The identity of the killer is kept hidden mysteriously enough and his motivations are acceptable...if you're not being too critical of course. Many people reject Fulci movies and avoid them like the plague. Wrong decision, if you ask me. Few directors show as many enthusiasm and creativity as this man does. Sure, I prefer him when he's up till his neck in zombies as well, ( The Beyond, Zombie Flesh Eaters ) but I surely appreciate the effort he made here and I'd like to recommend it to as many horror fans as possible. Enjoy !!

This may be the worst movie I've ever seen. I can't think of anything to redeem it. There's a serial killer walking around who quacks like a duck. (Is that supposed to be scary?). Characters * themselves and each other a lot in public. That really is the plot...I admit I didn't watch this movie all the way to the end, after an hour or so I just couldn't take anymore. But I can't imagine an ending that would really improve my opinion of this movie much. Not only is there no plot but the acting is terrible and the cinematography certainly isn't anything special. Some bad horror movies can be unintentionally funny and campy but "New York Ripper" doesn't even manage that because it takes itself seriously and just ends up stupid, insipid and boring.1/10 only because there's no 0 on the scale.

A Fulci giallo from his "splatter" days, of which period I'm not a fan: apart from several instances of unconvincing - rather than nauseating - gore, the film is virtually a compendium of (mostly irrelevant) sleaze; not surprisingly, it ended up as one of the U.K.'s infamous "Video Nasties". Jack Hedley is an underwhelming lead and he looks quite bored; the rest of the cast is equally uninteresting, and their characters frequently repellent (with Fulci putting in his customary brief appearance as the hero's irate superior). As is often the case with this type of thriller, the identity of the murderer isn't so hard to guess (the latter's phone calls to detective Hedley reminded me of the fine black comedy I watched recently, NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY [1968]) and the motive behind the vicious crimes pretty banal (made even more so by the ludicrous duck-quacking sounds which, apparently, condition the killer's actions) - all of which rather negates the mystique built up in preceding scenes...though Fulci seems to be striving here at some form of satire on the malaises of modern society! Despite the contribution of cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller (who had earlier lensed Dario Argento's DEEP RED [1975] and Fulci's own A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN [1971], two of the finest - and most stylish - gialli), the overall look of the film is rather drab (which, if anything, is in keeping with its nihilistic tone); ironically, though, very little of the film was actually shot in the titular city! Likewise, Francesco De Masi's score here (usually a highpoint of the subgenre) is largely undistinguished.

But I liked it! Obviously not Lucio Fulci´s best ("The Beyond" still holds the top, followed up by "Zombi 2"!), but nevertheless "The New York Ripper" is another gorefest that delights the fans and despairs the censors (Actually this flick is banned in many countries like Australia, the U.K., Germany or Norway...)! Endowed with some nudity (Maybe the sleaziest flick Fulci ever directed...) and elements from Giallo this gem has got some really unforgettable moments: I like the scene when Alexandra Delli Colli (She plays a woman which is permanently on the search for sexual adventures...) gets stimulated by two Latino-boys in a billiard bar and the take where wonderful Zora Kerova ("Cannibal Ferox") was maltreaten by bottle is pretty gut-wrenching! The bloody climax however is when the ripper tortures a prostitute to death with using a razorblade! Really shocking and disturbing!! People who demand a clever story surely will be disappointed, gorehounds however will find a revelation in this! So if you had fun with William Lustig´s "Maniac" (1980) you will also like this effective shocker!!!

Spoilers herein. This is a story along the lines of 'Lolita.' In that book, the whole trick was that the narrator (Humbert Humbert: he has the name repeated because he is on both sides of the fiction) is mad. Everything he says is untrustworthy but somewhat believable. Its so much so in fact that most readers never question him even though toward the end he clearly is having paranoid visions. There are a number of films that use this device as an excuse for trashy or exaggerated production values. For instance 'Robot Monster' is perhaps the junkiest scifi move I've ever seen. But it is the 'dream' of a ten year old, so is aptly junky. The trick in this one is that we are seeing through the eyes of a madwoman, someone who thinks she may be the killer. She is mad of course, but it is her physicist boyfriend turned mad because of an injustice to his little girl. He takes the persona of rubber duck from her hospital room in a clever narrative fold. The violence is very cheap and theatrical. Not scary or real, but scary because it is obviously demented. In other words, it is scary enough that _anyone_ would imagine these things, even more that it is a filmmaker-as-insane girl. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

While this movie contains plenty of graphic violence beyond most horror movies, I cannot deny a certain brilliance in Fulci's direction. Sure there were plot holes, the dubbing was bad, the duck sounded ridiculous, those were part of the reasons I enjoyed it, simply because a logical movie doesn't play with my mind like this one did. Fulci deals with a lot of psychological issues and the areas of the unknown. There is enough unsaid that keeps you guessing until the very end (some which never gets said, but we won't go there). In my opinion, this movie had a faster pace and more solid plot than most of Fulci's more popular efforts. It was simple: someone who talks like a duck is killing beautiful women in New York. I did find it scary. Sometimes I'm intrigued how they think up some of the things they did in this movie. Maybe it should be called "The Amsterdam Ripper" because of the extreme sex, violence, and drug atmosphere. But on the Anchor Bay DVD uncut release, the cinematography was amazing. I do love that this is an Italian movie filmed in New York, another totally illogical thing to do in my mind, yet on some level, it works for the sheer creativity and guts to do something new. No Academy Awards, but they sure don't make movies like this anymore! I'll give it 3 quacks out of 5.

I had heard of Lucio Fulci for years through mail order catalogs, interviews in genre magazines, and newsgroup discussions. I just decided yesterday to shell out $15 to buy the Anchor Bay video version of "New York Ripper". I am a huge video collector and the clamshell box with the lurid cover art just called out to me. Well, I popped it into the VCR after not eating any dinner (to disallow any possible barfing!) and watched the video. Though the gore is plentiful and there are some downright sleazy scenes, I thought this was one of the best "giallo"-type crime films I've ever seen! While not as violent as I thought it would be, there are plenty of graphic murders to squirm at. The worst by far was the murder of the detective's prostitute "girlfriend", including savage razorblade attacks on her nipples and her eyes! Despite the other reviews that say there is a lot of sex, there is only one real sex scene, the rest is heavily implied. As for misogyny charges, I think the film isn't misogynistic, just the killer. And this is never explained, so I guess the film could be a tad anti-woman, but I didn't really see anything expressing this feeling that I wouldn't see in any other slasher film. The widescreen version is the best one to see, it displays Fulci's gorgeous cinematography in full and makes the film look a little more classy and sophisticated than it should. The performance of Almanta Keller as Fay, the heroine, is one of the best I've seen in Italian horror films. Her dream sequence is another disturbing visual sequence that might leave your dinner in your lap! What more can I say, I love this movie, it is sleazy, it is violent, it is controversial, but the atmosphere and style of Fulci's filmmaking more than makes up for it.

As of this writing, "New York Ripper" has secured a rating of 6 out of 10 on IMDb, which I find amazing. It's truly a miracle considering what a poorly and cheaply slapped together mess this is, so I figured I'd do my part by casting a vote of 1 out of 10. Does it deserve a 1? Maybe. It's pretty much awful. If I were in a more generous mood, I might bump it up to 2, but it's definitely down there with the worst of the worst. The "Video Nasty" label probably helps its overall score, but that can't save it from being a monotonous bore. Leave it to a filmmaker of Fulci's dubious "talent" to make excessive nudity, graphic gore and oppressive unpleasantness seem so tedious. I really don't need to go into much detail about the plot. Standard story about a detective trying to track down a woman-hating (and duck voiced!) sex-psycho who's slashing up young ladies in the Big Apple. And yet despite such lovely acts as a broken bottle being thrust into a woman's crotch and another unfortunate getting her breast and eyeball sliced with a razor blade, it all seems so... DULL. Yes, dull. Granted I did kind of like the opening scene (a game of fetch gone terribly wrong!) but it's all downhill from there as the usual awful acting, writing, directing, etc. take their toll. But whatever... New York Ripper pretty much only works for a certain sector of horror fans anyway; those who fancy themselves more adventurous than your average fan. You know, they who use words like "hardcore" or "extreme" to describe themselves and their (limited) taste within the genre. So basically those people who want to see a large number of women being sexually assaulted, degraded and mutilated without pesky things like plot or characterization getting in the way. But I mean, "hardcore" is a fun term to throw around, especially if you want to sound cool in spite of the fact you don't like movies that require any thinking or even the most elementary of comprehension skills to view. I can only chuckle while skimming through all these reviews about how "extreme" and "hardcore" you have to be to sit through a movie where a guy taunts cops over the telly by reciting laughably bad dialogue in a Donald Duck voice in between scenes of jabbing sharp objects into mannequin heads with wobbly glass eyeballs. In any case, if all you want from a movie is to see a few naked girls getting slashed up real good... then have at it with New York Ripper. You might just like it. You must be "hardcore," bro! Others who aren't so "extreme" will want to go elsewhere for their kicks.