This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Not really. But this movie does feature a killer who, for some reason that is never really explained, enjoys talking like Donald Duck. Such is the weirdness that comes with this Italian Galeio film. One of the weirder and less coherent of Lucio Fulci's masterpiece, this still has plenty of the expected gore, but for a Fulci film, its pretty restrained in this. Personally, this isn't one of my favorite of his movies, but it does have its moments, some of it unintentionaly hilarious, like the aforementioned killers Donald duck voice.

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.

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 NEW YORK RIPPER is one brutal, nasty movie. Nearly out of all the Lucio Fulci films I've seen, this one takes the cake. 1981. The Big Apple is at its worst. Somewhere, a mysterious blade-wielding, squeaky-voiced psychopath is gutting up beautiful young women. British character actor Jack Hedley (FOR YOUR EYES ONLY) plays the obsessed, but uncouth NYPD lieutenant Fred Williams who is determined to capture the killer at all costs. Along the way, Lt. Williams gets to sleep with many hookers as a way of getting important information. Only something like this can happen in the early 1980's.Not since TAXI DRIVER has a film that determines to capture the sleazy, mean streets of New York City so realistically grim. In the tradition of Italian thrillers, Fulci shocks and offends the viewer with images of blood, images of depravity and images of sadistic decadence. Cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller succeeds in pulling out all the tricks of trade with surrealistic scenes of grandeur and merciless realism into the over-the-top killings. However, composer Franceso De Masi's inappropriate score almost kills the mood of the movie. A musical score like this is best suited for an episode of MAGNUM P.I. not a Fulci film. Previous composers like Fabio Frizzi or Walter Rizzati are far better candidates in my opinion. Notice that I awarded the film zero stars above the headline. Not because it's good or bad in my personal judgment, but the queasy, uncomfortable atmosphere will turn off causal horror fans. Controversial as MANIAC, daring as VIDEODROME and graphic as MAN BITES DOG, THE NEW YORK RIPPER will make you take a long, hot shower after each viewing.