The New York Ripper (1982)*** (out of 4) A washed-up detective (Jack Hedley) teams up with a psychoanalyst (Paolo Malco) to try and catch a psycho who is running around New York City cutting up women. What makes this psycho different is that he talks with a duck's voice but after letting one victim escape, the police have a good idea who is doing the slashing.The giallo genre offered up quite a few bloody and graphic movies but Lucio Fulci's THE NEW YORK RIPPER is without question that most vile, disgusting, sexually perverted and notorious of them all. Whatever "shock value" the Italian director got out of films like ZOMBIE, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and THE BEYOND couldn't match what people would get with this film, which was obviously heavily censored throughout the world. If you're looking for an intelligent thriller then this here certainly isn't for you but if you just want something dirty and something that takes pleasure in its sleaze then you're not going to find anything better than this.Again, if you're wanting a story then just avoid this because logically the film makes very little sense and at times I wondered if they were even using any sort of script. The film really does seem like they were just shooting things as they went along and Fulci pieced everything together in the editing room. I'm not going to ruin the ending but most people still debate what actually happened and even after a half a dozen viewings I'm still confused. With that said, not too many people come to any Fulci film for the story but what also helps is the scope cinematography that perfectly captures the dirtiness of New York City. The porno theaters and sleazy bars just make for a wonderful setting and the music score is also just something you'd expect to hear in a porno movie from the era.What THE NEW YORK RIPPER is known for is its graphic violence. The gore level is certainly high here as the ripper lights to slash women from their vagina to their breasts and the gore comes flowing. The most notorious scene involves a razor and an eye, which will have most people turning away from the screen. Another plus is that the cast, for the most part, is entertaining and makes up for the lack of a real story. THE NEW YORK RIPPER isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination and there are countless flaws but there's still no question that it deserves credit for being willing to be as trashy as it is.

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.

After making the (for the most part) fantastic "Gates Of Hell"-trilogy, Lucio Fulci clearly needed to take his foot of the throttle for a little while. "The New York Ripper" isn't a bad movie, but to his standards it's surprisingly middle of the road. I mean sure, as usual it's a hundred times gorier than the average thriller, but apart from that there isn't much to keep your attention. It's a pretty underwritten whodunit with too few suspects, all too transparent red herrings, a dreadfully slow pace and a truly laughable motive. Thankfully even at his most pedestrian Fulci can still come up with two or three scenes that keep you awake. The scene with the old man is a fantastic opening that pulls you right in, the middle-aged woman who's bored with her husband provides some fascinatingly unerotic segments when trying to find arousal elsewhere (the poolhall sequence is a real "huh?" of a scene), and the ending is entertainingly straight-forward to say the least. And of course the movie's cinematography is great as always, and the synth soundtrack provides a nice contrast with the grim subject matter. So there are quite a few good things to say about this movie, you just have to fish them out between huge chunks of a boring cop and a boring professor trying to find a boring serial killer: that's not very easy to do.

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?