The New York Ripper (1982)

New York City: It s A Nice Place To Visit But You Wouldn t Want To Die There!A blade-wielding psychopath is on the loose turning The Big Apple bright red with the blood of beautiful young women. As NYPD detectives follow the trail of butchery from the decks of the Staten Island Ferry to the sex shows of Times Square each brutal murder becomes a sadistic taunt. In the city that never sleeps he s the killer that can t be stopped!Written and directed by acclaimed horror maestro Lucio Fulci (ZOMBIE CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD) and filmed on location in the mean streets of New York City THE NEW YORK RIPPER is one of Fulci s most savage and controversial thrillers and is presented here completely uncut and uncensored.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR/KILLER UPC: 827058112291 Manufacturer No: 827058112291 Product Description

Guaranteed to make you squirm.

The New York Ripper was a great Italian horror film from Lucio Fulci, the film was filled with plenty of gruesome death scenes and lots of sleaze, sex and nudity in fact its probably one of the sleaziest Italian horror flicks I've ever seen. The film was also out of stock for a while so I was glad when I heard about the good news, it was finally being re-released by Blue Underground they've been doing a great job lately, the picture quality was great with no grains and it's completely uncut with a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio looking and sounding better than ever. The New York Ripper was also notorious for being banned in the U.K. and it was included in the video nasties list, this is easily one of Lucio Fulci's darkest and goriest films out there (O.K. maybe not THE goriest, I still think that Cat In The Brain holds that title), there is one scene that was quite sick and perverse thats guaranteed to make you squirm, yes I'm talking about the "Golden Toes" scene WTF!!!. When an old man finds a prostitute's severed hand under the Brooklyn Bridge the police decide to do a little investigating. It seems that the victim was heard speaking to a strange duck-voiced man. As the murders add up the police detective who's investigating the case recruits a psychology professor to help find out who this Donald Duck voiced maniac could be, theres also a subplot involving a woman (Alessandra Delli Colli from Dr. Butcher M.D.) who enjoys being perverse and records her exploits on a tape recorder for her husband, there was also a bit of suspense which was nicely done by Fulci I was actually surprised by this, I was expecting a lot of badly edited and shot sequences but there weren't that many in this film. This is a typical Fulci flick which means that the plot gets thinner during the course of the film and the bad acting which was adequate especially for this type of film could have been better but thats not important, if your a hardcore Fulci or exploitation fan then you'll obviously love this as the death scenes were quite brutal and very nasty it includes nipple slicing, a face being carved up and mutilated, a young woman being stabbed with a large knife in her vagina and ripped open etc. this is definetely NOT a date movie unless your date was a psychotic maniac ;-), this is obviously not going to appeal to those who are easily offended or those who have a weak stomach so you have been warned. The New York Ripper was done in the early 80's and it was made during the period when Lucio Fulci was still making good movies as he previously made his classic zombie films The Beyondand City of the Living Dead, the film was nicely shot using different locations in N.Y. and some seedier places like the xxx theaters and sleazy motels. I have to admit that I really liked this film alot and it was one of Fulci's best, while not a classic like Zombi 2 (25th Anniversary Special Edition 2-Disc Set) it was still great and enjoyable. Hats of to Blue Underground for releasing a classic sleazy Lucio Fulci film and making it available, I highly recommend this and two thumbs up QUACK!!! ;-). June 12, 2008

For Those Who Like This Sort of Thing...

...This is the sort of thing they like. This disc is one of many Blue Underground reissues of Italian horror titles formerly offered by Anchor Bay; even the on-screen menus are the same. As to the movie itself...let's face it: Lucio Fulci was no great director, but he was on a roll at this point with some notable horror outings. THE NEW YORK RIPPER stands apart from ZOMBIE, and others, in that it is a straight murder story with no supernatural elements. It does, however, offer some endearing goofiness (gotta love that duck-voiced killer), and plenty of what most fans expect from a Fulci title: hard-core gore with no apology.
As such, I recommend this one to Fulci fanatics and Eurotrash junkies. By the way: when is someone going to release CAT IN THE BRAIN?? June 8, 2008

Not a Fulci classic.

After waiting forever to see this film, perhaps I was too built up. Lots of Fulci fans list this film as one of his best. However I think it's nowhere near the level of City of The Living Dead or The Beyond. Not even as good as House by the Cemetery IMO. You've been warned. May 5, 2008

Hardcore Ed Wood

A reputation can be a terrible thing. In the napalm-blast of

1980s' fear concerning movie violence, many worthless slices of

cinematic dross acquired undeserving kudos by virtue of the

'video-nasty' label, while several genuine works of art (A

Clockwork Orange, The Evil Dead) were dragged under the wheels of

the juggernaut of public paranoia.
Fulci's The New York Ripper is a film that deserves to be

extricated from the censor's dungeon and reappraised, not as a

shamelessly mistreated classic but as a video-era schlocker

that's tacky, tonally incompetent and, above all, completely

harmless. Fulci's silly slasher belongs to the subgenre of balls

'n' all gore films that can trace their lineage back to the

bloody, zero-value outpouring of Herschell Gordon Lewis. The plot

lurches unevenly from one torture-scene to the next, with a

near-comatose Jack Hedley as a nominal hero cop who sleepwalks

through the mire of cod-psychology and seedy sexuality that Fulci

favours in lieu of a decent script. Just as in hardcore porn,

plotting, characterisation, dialogue and direction are irrelevant

window-dressing to the money-shots of flesh-ripping on display.

There is a gleeful sadism evident in the scenes of

broken-bottle/vaginal interface, nipple-slicing and eye

bisection, but nothing that will faze fans of the Hostel or Saw

franchises. Indeed, there is an almost quaint, kitsch appeal to

the ropey latex mutilations, with Fulci's stark, almost careless

camerawork resolutely embracing the no-frills style of

exploitation cinema.This truly is the stuff that Eli Roth's

wet-dreams are made of.
Lit like a peepshow, and boasting just as much cheap titillation

with as little artistic merit, Fulci's Ripper is a camp curiosity

that offers some basic sustenance to gorehounds with an interest

in the history of the genre. The absurdity of the 'duck-voiced

killer' conceit suggests that Fulci probably didn't take this

nonsense too seriously, an approach which every viewer should

wholeheartedly adopt. You may baulk in disgust at a few moments

of lingering body-horror; but mostly you'll just spend the 93

minutes' running time sniggering. April 7, 2008

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