March 31, 2010 18:19
I’ve decided to share my love of grindhouse films by posting periodical daily grindhouse choices. To inaugurate this new feature I’ve chosen a favorite early 80’s grindhouse flick straight from the mind of the maestro himself, Lucio Fulci.
The New York Ripper is one of Fulci’s contribution to the Italian cinema genre of gialli films. Giallo (gialli – plural) films have a colorful, no pun intended, history in Italian filmmaking and it’s Golden Age last from the 70’s all through the mid-80’s when the public’s appetite for them started to wane. This Lucio Fulci entry into the giallo genre was not his first but it was one of his most infamous one’s for the fact that many people thought it’s depiction of women and their deaths on-screen was labeled as extremely misogynistic and cruel. The New York Ripper wasn’t even one of the better films in Fulci body of work, but the label of misogynism and having been banned from many countries or being shown only as a X-rated feature film brought it attention and made it a staple in the so-called “grindhouse” cinemas that were prevalent in the 70’s and 80’s.
The film liberally lifts its ideas from the famous “Jack the Ripper” true-crime investigation and transplants it, where else, but New York City. The killings were brutal to the point that I understood the outrage many had over them. What made this film a favorite of mine is not the controversy revolving over calls of misogynism or the near-pornographic scenes of violence, but the killer himself. As you shall see in the attached trailer for the film the duck voice and quacking you will hear is not a joke added into the trailer but part of the film’s titular character’s personality.
Yes, ladies and gents…Donald Duck is the New York Ripper!
Posted by Arleigh
Categories: Film
Tags: Donald Duck, giallo, gore, grindhouse, Horror, Lucio Fulci, slasher, suspense
Mobile Site | Full Site
Get a free blog at WordPress.com Theme: WordPress Mobile Edition by Alex King.
Odd film, the New York Ripper. It features some of Fulci’s best work as a director, it’s fairly well-acted, and yet it’s also next to impossible to defend. I guess that’s why I like to think of this as being Fulci’s big joke on the world.
LikeLike
By Lisa Marie Bowman on April 3, 2010 at 17:26
My thoughts exactly. I think people who object to the film’s themes and violence are taking the film too seriously. For me, the joke really reared it’s head once the duck voice spoke. It’s really hard not to break into a laugh and giggles because of that and still feel offended by the whole thing.
LikeLike
By unobtainium13 on April 4, 2010 at 11:11
Good review!
LikeLike
By thehorrorfiend on May 8, 2010 at 19:13
[…] by Lucio Fulci. The film features Fulci regulars Al Cliver (of Zombi 2 fame) and Howard Ross (of New York Ripper fame) in supporting roles. Cinzia Monreale, who had her throat ripped apart in Fulci’s The […]
LikeLike
By Sci-Fi Film Review: Warriors of The Year 2072 (dir by Lucio Fulci) | Through the Shattered Lens on December 7, 2015 at 23:19
[…] portrayal of New York as Hell-on-Earth reached its logical conclusion with Lucio Fulci’s The New York Ripper but even films less extreme than Fulci’s still presented New York as representing every […]
LikeLike
By Sci-Fi Film Review: 2019: After The Fall of New York (dir by Sergio Martino) | Through the Shattered Lens on December 14, 2015 at 21:12
[…] watching Giallo in Venice, it was hard not to compare it to Lucio Fulci’s The New York Ripper. Both films are deeply unpleasant but, due to Fulci’s energetic and, at times, subversive […]
LikeLike
By The TSL’s Grindhouse: Giallo in Venice (dir by Mario Landi) | Through the Shattered Lens on May 4, 2017 at 22:23
[…] compromised form. Following the release of his controversial and disturbing slasher film, The New York Ripper, Fulci’s career went into decline and, suffering from ill-health and often in desperate need of […]
LikeLike
By The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: A Cat In The Brain (dir by Lucio Fulci) | Through the Shattered Lens on October 3, 2017 at 19:00
[…] A teenage couple fools around in the basement of the deserted Oak Mansion. Just from listening to them talk, we can surmise that the mansion has a reputation for strange events. Suddenly, the boy vanishes. The girl looks for him, telling him that whatever he’s doing stopped being funny a long time ago. Suddenly, a knife is driven through the back of her head, the blade eventually exiting through the girl’s mouth. Fans of Italian horror and Fulci films in particular will not be shocked by this grisly turn of events, mostly because the girl was played by Daniela Doria. Doria appeared in several Fulci films and, in each film, her character was brutally murdered. The House By The Cemetery was her third Fulci film. She would later appear and get killed in Fulci’s The New York Ripper. […]
LikeLike
By Italian Horror Showcase: The House By The Cemetery (dir by Lucio Fulci) | Through the Shattered Lens on October 10, 2018 at 11:46
[…] The New York Ripper (1982, dir by Lucio Fulci) […]
LikeLike
By 6 Shots From 6 Films: Special Lucio Fulci Edition! | Through the Shattered Lens on June 17, 2020 at 11:14
[…] special effects spectacluar with a large budget but, after the controversy surrounding Fulci’s The New York Ripper, the budget was drastically scaled back and the special effects were done on the cheap. Fulci […]
LikeLike
By International Horror Film Review: Manhattan Baby (dir by Lucio Fulci) | Through the Shattered Lens on October 6, 2021 at 11:01
[…] life, was infamous for including scenes of eyes being either pierced or gouged out in his films. The New York Ripper even featured one scene where an eye was slit in half with a razor blade. (This occurred in a […]
LikeLike
By Horror Film Review: X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes (dir by Roger Corman) | Through the Shattered Lens on October 2, 2024 at 08:01
[…] of The Beyond trilogy and Zombi 2. The film’s killer isn’t even as interesting as The New York Ripper‘s killer who talked like a duck. That said, I think some critics have been a bit too hard […]
LikeLike
By October Hacks: Murder Rock (dir by Lucio Fulci) | Through the Shattered Lens on October 2, 2024 at 18:01
[…] I’ve shared. It appeared in Lucio Fulci’s controversial (to put it mildly) giallo, The New York Ripper. That film is so infamous for its violence, nihilism, and killer who quacks like a duck that it […]
LikeLike
By Horror Song Of The Day: New York One More Day by Francesco De Masi | Through the Shattered Lens on October 19, 2024 at 05:00