Even though I’m probably going to catch hell (or even a knife in the privates) for this, I have to admit I never really cared for Lucio Fulci’s ode to sleazoid exploitation, The New York Ripper. It’s especially weird when you consider I have quite an affinity for Fulci’s more fantastical work, I love the Slasher and Giallo genres and I’ve always been intrigued by the unique, scummy atmosphere that radiated out of the Big Apple in the 70s and 80s. Hell, I even consider such New York based sleezemeisters as Frank Henenlotter, William Lustig, Lloyd Kaufman and Larry Cohen as patron saints of that particular type of exploitation film that you can feel sticking to your shoes – so surely having Fulci step into this area should have been nothing short of euphoric for me
And yet… yeeeeash – I don’t know man. While I obviously understand and except that exploitation fare of that period tended to take no prisoners, especially when it came to the treatment of women. But even when compared to the likes of Maniac, or I Spit On Your Grave, The New York Ripper seems to go that extra mile when it comes to crossing that line between controversial and outright misogyny.
After decomposed hand is found by a man walking his dog, Tucson becomes apparent that a killer is stalking the streets of New York City who has taken to mutilating the genitalia of various young and attractive women about town. As the unfeasably rumpled Lieutenant Fred Williams struggles to comprehend with exactly what he’s dealing with (when he isn’t frequenting the services by pretty, young prostitute, Kitty), he seeks advice from the abnormally smug Dr. Paul Davis to create a profile on this mad dog killer before more women are horribly mutilated.
As Fred goes on about his business, we are gradually introduced to a selection of possible killers and probable victims who all seem to have their own particular kinks that make them either extra suspicious or super vunerable. Sitting comfortably in the “possible killer” section is Mickey Scellenda, an eight-fingered pervert of some renown who seems to be spotted in the same areas whenever a murder goes down, but filling the seats clearly marked “victim” is voyeuristic trophy wife Jane Lodge, whose lust for dangerous sexual experiences will probably lead to her coming a cropper; and pretty young woman, Fay, who becomes the first woman to survive a scrape with the killer.
However, be it because of his violent, sexual ferocity when it comes to his victims, or the fact that he regularly taunts Lt. Fred with phone calls while using a cartoon duck voice complete with Donald Duck quacks, the police find it almost impossible to pin him down and can only wait until he makes a mistake. In fact, the only hope they have is that Fay can give them some valuable info before more women are bloodily rent asunder by this quacking lunatic.
Before all you New York Ripper supporters come banging at my door complete with angry retorts and various duck noises, I feel I have to mention that it’s not just the apparent misogyny that I have an issue with. Yes, I understand that violence that is predominantly aimed a women is something of a slasher/giallo prerequisite, but The New York Ripper also has something of an issue thanks to being surprisingly dull. Give me a Lucio Fulci that sees him resurrecting the dead, having village idiots have their skulls bored with drills and pitting a zombie and a shark in a battle to the dead, then I’m happy as a pig in shit, but when you let the old bugger loose on something approaching a police procedural, then we start to have serious pacing issues. The movie apparently has only two settings: either shocking you with staggeringly graphic sexual murders or having Jack Hedley cartoonishly burnt out cop mill over the case extremely slowly. There’s literally no tension at all and matters are made even weirder by Fulci’s decision to make virtually ever character have some sort of overriding kink to push the psycho-sexual angle through the roof. Our lead character regularly visits a prostitute easily half his age at least, Paul turns out to be a closet Homosexual who buys gay porn on the sly, Jane has the voracious appetite for dangerous, sexual experiences of an S&M rabbit in heat and Mickey seems to be the sort of guy who’d list sexual assault as a hobby and as a result, the movie doesn’t really have anyone you can root for aside from the clean cut Fay.
Obviously, what gave the movie its near-legendary notoriety is its startlingly nasty kill scenes, but while they are carried out with typically stylish aplomb with funky angles and striking lighting, there’s only so many times I can watch a woman being stabbed in the nether regions before I start to openly worry about Fulci’s personal politics. Still, aside from all that mutilation, Fulci changes things up slightly with an admittedly impressive scene where Daniela Doria – an actress no stranger to bearing the brunt of some of the director’s more memorable deaths – is carved up with a straight razor in a moment that just had to have inspired an infamous moment in Terrorizer 2; and a stupendous moment when someone is shot in the cheekbone with explosive results.
However, I just can’t get past how thoroughly unpleasant it all is. I can commend William Lustig’s similarly sordid Maniac because we’re seeing things through the remarkable performance of an unfeasibly swear Joe Spinell and I can accept the nihilistic brutality of the original I Spit On Your Grave because at least the woman gets her revenge in the end – but New York Ripper just can’t get the nod from me because the film just seems put in place to showcase prolonged and gratuitous violence solely against women and its lackadaisical pace and unintentionally humorous cartoon killer voice seem to also suggest that we shouldn’t particularly care.
Go on any film site that has reviews, be it Letterboxd to IMDb, any you’ll find plenty of reviews praising Fulci’s grim thriller and who knows, maybe they’re all seeing something in it I missed; but while I’ve seen plenty of equally unpleasant movies I can happily praise for artistic reasons, this tale of prostitutes, perverts and pierced private parts just manages to leave me colder than penguin’s posterior. However, I do have to admit that the immensely cruel nature of the ending, that sees the terminally ill daughter of the duck voiced killer waiting for a phone call from her father that’ll never come is low-key genius.
Thoroughly unpleasant and legitimately off-putting in a way that just isnt entertaining, The New York Ripper is a slasher that’s not all it’s quacked up to be…
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