The New York Ripper (Italian: Lo Squartatore di New York) is a 1982 Italian giallo film directed by Lucio Fulci. The film score was written by Francesco De Masi, whilst the screenplay was written by Fulci, Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino and Dardano Sacchetti. It was banned in many countries or released as an “adults-only” movie after heavy editing. Whilst most of Lucio Fulci’s other films have been released uncut in the United Kingdom, The New York Ripper remains censored to this day, even for its 2011 DVD and Blu-ray releases. At the time it was made, real-life serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, nicknamed ‘The Yorkshire Ripper’ had only recently been apprehended so Fulci’s film would have been even more contentious had it not been undemocratically rejected by unelected British censors.
In the grimy but neon-drenched streets of New York, a maniacal killer is discovered to be on the loose after the body of a local prostitute is found dismember by a man walking his dog. Dispatched to investigate is the grizzled, bitter Lieutenant Fred Williams (Jack Hedley) who after visiting the girl’s landlady is given his only lead; the girl had recently been talking with a man who had a voice like a duck. Before the detective can investigate the claims, a woman is viciously attacked and killed aboard a ferry, our first introduction to the killer who not only sounds like a duck but a very famous duck – Donald. Warned by the chief of police (Fulci himself in a not uncommon appearance onscreen) not to reveal details to the public for fear of causing mad panic, Williams learns that the duck-voiced foe has been trying to contact him, leading to film-long taunting by the killing after each victim is slain. Further hideously lurid murders take place and suspicion falls on well-known drop-out called Mickey Scellenda, already convicted for drug and sexual offences and with tell-tale missing fingers. The film introduces us to Fay Majors (Almanta Keller), who becomes the lynch-pin to the case, surviving an attack and confusing the issue by believing the killer is actually her boyfriend. The Ripper’s attacks become ever-more frenzied and increase in regularity but just as the net seems to be closing in on the killer, has Williams got the wrong man/duck?
Having already covered many genres with often stunning results (the tour de force Western, Four of the Apocalypse, and landmark zombie film Zombie Flesheaters to name but two), Fulci returned to the giallo genre for the first time since The Psychic (aka Sette Note in Nero) but with a far colder heart and with outrageously graphic sexual violence, most of which is shown on-screen, though stills suggest that even the director excised some scenes from even the most intact prints. Containing just about everything that then head of the BBFC, James Ferman, objected to in films, he allegedly ordered the print sent for certification in the UK to be escorted back to the airport where it could be flown to safety, away from sensitive British eyes. The film remained uncertified for cinema screenings and became part of the notorious ‘video nasty’ list. Ferman never let go out of his hatred for the film and several years later in a Channel 4 documentary entitled Sex and the Censors, declared the film ‘irresponsible’.
The lack of Fulci’s unmistakable gothic template and relocation to New York fills the film with despair and filth (rather like Driller Killer or Maniac) before the killer and his motivations even begin; it’s a film that is utterly without remorse. The sexual attacks are very much just that – accusations of misogyny were flung Fulci’s way as the graphic scenes of naked womens’ bodies seemingly slashed and mutilated under the veil of what can only be described as a very thin plot, rather pointlessly winds its way to a revelation that is the cinematic equivalent of a shoulder-shrug.
The New York Ripper is Lucio Fulci at his most frustrating. A sometimes gifted artist behind the camera, he resorts to slasher men-as-brutes/women-as-victims sensationalism and crudeness at the expense of a holey plot and unremarkable acting (kudos though to Zora Kerova who appears as a sex-show performer, having previously been hounded in grubby Eurotrash films such as Anthropophagus, Terror Express and Cannibal Ferox - a glutton for punishment if ever there was one!) and electing to give the killer the voice of a cartoon duck. On first watch this is actually rather entertaining, more due to novelty than genius – repeated viewings show it to be increasingly baffling and desperate. Though other films of the 1970′s and 1980′s were similarly morally dubious and little more than excuse to titillate an easily pleased audience, few do it with such brazen garishness.
On the plus side, we are given an excuse to listen to a score by Francesco De Masi, usually to be found as the writer for euro-crime poliziotteschi films (Napoli Spara) or Italian Westerns (Arizona Colt). In truth, though great fun and an excellent listen, it’s an odd mis-match to a film that though required viewing for gorehounds, is essentially a ‘greatest hits’of sexist splatter effects with Donald Duck in the background.
Daz Lawrence
Several of the images come courtesy of the excellent http://silverferox.blogspot.co.uk/
