The New York Ripper (1982)
Directed by Lucio Fulci
Italian “Giallo” films are commonly known as the precursor for the slasher film. Through my many years as a horror fan and a slasher film aficionado I have tried numerous times to watch giallo movies, and I just can’t do it. They’re usually quite slow and never seem to catch my attention. I actually attempted to watch this probably 7 years ago, at least. It was on Netflix back when Netflix added horror movies that weren’t from the 2000s, and trash. I had a day off and decided to revisit this on Amazon Prime. I have seen Fulci movies before and enjoyed them. The Beyond and Zombi 2 are crazy intense fun horror movies that I really enjoyed. After experiencing more and more Italian horror movies, I wondered if my outlook on giallo would change, so here we go.
The New York Ripper is about a mysterious murderer that has been killing young girls with a knife in New York City. The Police are hot on the trail of the killer that quacks like a duck. Can the tired old detective catch the killer and save future victims? Will the killer ever satisfy his lust for torture and blood? Much like other Italian horror films from the era, the characters are kind of hard to follow because there are numerous other stories going on at the same time. Introduce a character, with no backstory then they go away and we never see them again.
Sleazy. Sleazy is the word that would best describe The New York Ripper, well that and brutal. The movie is dark, dirty, and makes you feel uncomfortable. Everything about this movie is mean spirited and deranged. The killer quacks and talks in a cartoon duck voice (a la Donald Duck) whilst killing the women and making phone calls to the police. At times the movie feels like porn, other times it feels like a snuff film. Super intense and graphic death scenes are a staple of Fulci movies. The eye cutting scene is the main “attraction” for this film. I literally had to look away, eye stuff gets to me. It may be even more unsettling than the eye gouge from Zombi 2. Seems like Fulci has an eye fetish. The effects are really well done.
The camera work is pretty decent. The film seems low budget and dirty, which totally fits the atmosphere and the genre of the movie. The angles and moving shots are pretty well done and the ever present POV shots are top notch. You get a feel of uneasiness (word?) even before the graphic scenes of dismemberment and gore. The dialogue is odd, hell the movie itself is kind of odd, but especially the conversations. One scene in particular threw me off. Some rich bitch goes to a dank bar and gets toed by some greasy dude. All I could think about was how gross his toe probably was, he was wearing shoes with no socks, his feet must have been sweaty AF. Then the woman just lets him diddle her bean with it? Yeah nasty! Obviously, this is an Italian film and the dialogue maybe lost in translation and I really can’t explain its weirdness. It is one of those things where you just know from seeing these old Italian horror films translated over to English before. It makes sense, its not a long the lines of “All your base are belong to us” (record scratch* if you don’t understand that reference, we probably can’t be friends) it is all just kind of awkward.
Did I enjoy it the second time around? Yeah, I did! I have seemed to finally find an appreciation for the giallo movie. I should dive in deeper now, will I? Who knows. The New York Ripper is an insanely mean spirited and brutal slasher/giallo hybrid. Fulci was never afraid to pan away from intense violence and gore, and I appreciate it. Would I watch it again? I don’t think so, I watched it once all the way through, I enjoyed it and I think that is good for me. I can’t see it having replay value for me. I always have a hard time following Italian movies, for the reason that they introduce characters with no explanation then they just disappear (like the rich woman that got toed by stinky foot). I just enjoy these for the intense violence and camera work. I give this movie a solid C. Not amazing, not bad at all.
