PLOT
The city so good they named it twice
has a duck-quacking psycho killer on the loose
REVIEW
“He used a blade, he stuck it up her
joy trail, and slit her wide open”
Lucio Fulci is the man
THE BEYOND, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD
(aka THE GATES OF HELL), HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, ZOMBI 2 known to many
of us as simply ZOMBIE, if you're a horror fan I need not say more,
all stupendous gory examples of classic Italian horror that
established Fulci in the company of other great Italian horror
directors such as Dario Argento and Mario Bava. While I love his work
one title from his filmography that always escaped me was THE NEW
YORK RIPPER, it was always on my list of “must watch” films and
seeing as how I'm currently on a big Italian horror fix I finally
caved in and put on Lo squartatore di New York
THE NEW YORK RIPPER wastes no time and
is quickly set in motion, 10 mins into the movie the Ripper's first
kill is committed in all it's tit-stabbing glory. The backdrop to all
the carnage is the wonderful big apple circa 1982, where our main
protagonist police Lt. Fred Williams is on the hunt for the
sanguinary sadist. The ripper is never actually seen on screen, thus
the real identity is shrouded in mystery, although we get our first
suspect in a mysterious man missing two fingers who hits the streets
for porno shops and adult movie theaters offering the most sextacular
sexciting and sexational live xxx shows on their marquee. But is he
the New york ripper? ..?? ?...?
Regardless one thing is certain, the
ripper is crazier than a shit-house rat, pussy-impaling helpless
girls all the while duck-quacking and taunting the police with
conceited glee. There's no hockey mask, no fashionable attire, no
funny banter, even his killing implements are beyond simplicity, the
one thing that defines the NY ripper is pure bat-shit insanity. It's
a trait shared with other human movie killers like Leatherface and
Norman Bates, driven by psychosis and an eccentric murderous desire
that needs to be filled, in this case, killing beautiful spry women
The ripper likes to work messy too
Nothing near the eye-poking of ZOMBIE
or head-explosion of THE BEYOND, but the red indeed flows in
formidable amount, that and the T&A, lotsa nudity, sexual
situations, including what must be one of the only instances of a
foot-job displayed on film outside of porn. Who knows what compelled
Fulci and co. to believe that what the movie needed was a dude taking
his moccasin off and going to town on a girl under a table with his
bunion but what the hell. The movie is amusing in that way, playing
mostly on exploitation whether sexual or homicidal, now does that
work enough to make a good film? To some degree
THE GOOD
.Good gore
.Not seeing the killer on screen is
effective
THE BAD
. The soundtrack is quite
disappointing, Fulci's horror films typically have great music but
this one is really sub-par
THE FINAL CURTAIN
I was not disappointed, although I
considered it a lesser film compared to other Fulci films I still
enjoyed it, although not as much. Certainly not a bad film, actually
very decent, but not without it's faults, although any other
grievances are somewhat minor and I resist discussing them as they
would reveal too much, also they're not worth analyzing when you
stack them up against the rest of the film, which is damn good
I would deem this an adequate film,
there really isn’t much of a payoff, there is, but I’ll admit not
that much, but sometimes there doesn’t have to be, sometimes you
just want good ole meat and potatoes heavy on the sauce
It's worth a look, if possible via
blu-ray
RATING 7
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