The New York Ripper (1984)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Good movie but grossly overrated

Brilliant and touching

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Insanely brutal, seemingly misogynistic Lucio Fulci thriller tells of a psychopath butchering young women in NYC. But this is no run of the mill creep: they love to taunt the cops while speaking in a Donald Duck type of voice. The world weary detective on the case, Fred Williams (Jack Hedley) teams up with a college psychoanalyst, Paul Davis (Paolo Malco) to try to come up with a profile on their quarry."The New York Ripper" is admittedly not as fun as other Fulci gore epics, mainly because it's operating in a more realistic mode and is therefore more disturbing. The violence perpetrated on these poor, poor women is very damn depraved. At one point, Fulci indulges in a little of that eyeball trauma that he seemed to want to specialize in. A sex show worker (Zora Kerova) gets a broken bottle in the most private of places. Fulcis' favourite whipping girl, Daniela Doria, once again must suffer a horrible fate.Good use of NYC locations, an enjoyable rock score by Francesco De Masi, and (mostly) very convincing gore combine in this 93 minute exercise in sadism. Performances are decent enough, although Hedley's character is lacking in personality. Malco is engaging, though, as is the stunning Almanta Suska as Fay. Director Fulci has his usual cameo; here he plays the Chief of Police.Adding just the right touch of humour and bizarreness are those calls from the killer, doing their duck imitation.You know you're going to be in for some effective horror after the opening set piece of an old man walking his dog. He throws the dog a stick to fetch, and the dog comes back with a severed hand.Eight out of 10.

Anyone expecting some low grade, squalid video nasty is going to be sorely disappointed. This is one of those films that's much better than its reputation suggests. What we actually have here is a highly intelligent and articulated thriller! Sure there is some of the Fulci trademark gore, but in this case it's better handled, more taut, and less excessive! The film also utilizes some great location shots in and around New York, and the camera-work and editing is top notch! I found the film to be outstanding in it's competence, and wish there were more out there like this. This is a work of an experienced director and crew and not amateurs. I fear it may have been banned, cut and trashed mainly due to it's association with the director's name, and the highly evocative and chilling, but iconic title of the film! Finally I found what could have turned out to be silly.. the maniacal quacking of the Ripper to be inspired and genius. This alone raises the movie 'beyond' the realms of your standard murder, mystery and suspense fare!

It's easy to see this film as an over the top gore and sleaze fest, because superficially that's what it is, but am I the only one who thought that The New York Ripper was Fulci's first attempt at parody, in the vein of Cat in the Brain?I get the feeling here that this film is Fulci's attack on the US and what viewers in the states want from Italian movies. He sets it in and around 42nd street, where many of these splatter films played, and uses that general area to wallow in the gore and sex, cranking up the violence to absurd levels, as he did in Cat in the Brain. It's as if he's saying 'This is what you want, so this is what you get' while having the killer speak like a duck, referring back to a much subtler play on the same theme. A reference to what used to sell in the US. As for the misogyny angle, I think that by having the killer played by the first openly gay Italian actor Fulci's having a bit of an in joke himself. I'm no film critic (as you can tell) but throughout the film Fulci seems to keep referring to the subtlety of horror, as can by noted by the final scene, which contains true, hopeless horror of disabled girl left without a father. That one scene for me convinces me that Fulci was trying to say 'Well, you've got gore and nudity, but here's true terror'. The girl asking for her father, alone in hospital, not knowing he's dead (and a killer), is Fulci's slap in the face to horror fans. It's the one truly chilling scene in the entire film. Maybe I'm reading too much into what's there, but he does the exact same thing again in Cat in the Brain. Perhaps he thought that the message in New York Ripper was too carefully hidden. Either that, or I've gone crazy watching too many Italian horror films.

"The sickest movie ever made!", proudly proclaims one of the many different DVD covers for the "New York Ripper"; I wouldn't go that far, but it's certainly one of the sleaziest and most misogynistic. If that's what you're after, you probably won't be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you're looking for a good mystery, you probably will be: there are only two real suspects for the killings, and one of them is soooo obvious that you know it has to be the other (despite one last-minute dishonest red herring thrown in by Fulci - I'm talking about the last phone call). And then there are a couple of Hall Of Shame lines, like "we know from his blood sample that he's lived all his life in New York"!!! The on-location New York shooting and Francesco De Masi's score give the film a flavor of authenticity, but otherwise Fulci's directorial style is mostly point-and-shoot (or is that point-and-slash?) this time around. As for the cast, only Jack Hedley provides a center of sanity here, though Almanta Suska is not bad considering this was her first screen role. I will give "New York Ripper" ** out of 4 because it's certainly memorable in parts, but from an artistic point-of-view it has little value.