The New York Ripper (Lucio Fulci, 1982)

As my friends know, I enjoy a little Donald Ducking around the house. Now this is not some sort of mucky Cockney rhyming slang, but the act of only wearing a t-shirt with nothing else on at all. Liberating and unsanitary. For the cheeky monkey in Fulci's 1982 film though, Donald Ducking means something else entirely. For him, this involves quacking like the anthropomorphic angry duck and violently murdering young ladies he feels have questionable morals. Judgemental murderous prick.

The film moves away from Fulci's traditional style and themes. Gone are the surreal nightmarish visuals, replaced by a grittier  realistic tone. Fulci's camera captures New York in the early 80's with a documentary touch bringing to mind the works of hardcore auteur Shaun Costello's sleazy NY roughies. Rarely has the city seemed so full of threat and violence.

The film opens with an old man walking his dog down by the Hudson river. He bends down, inexplicably says "oof, my balls", and then throws the stick to the dog. His canine companion, in a moment of disgraceful disobedience, instead brings him back a rotting severed hand. And then Francesco De Masi's jazzsnazztastic opening theme kicks in!




The film progresses as hard-nosed detective cliche Lt. Fred Williams gets hot on the trail of the serial killer in quite a pedestrian way. Thrown into this mix is a decadent swinging couple, a simpering college girl and her banana faced boyfriend, a know it all professor with a taste for man-on-man rhythm magazines, and a man with missing fingers who leers and grunts his whole way through the entire film. Who is the duck-voiced killer? I shall keep that a secret as I know how people get their knickers in a twist at the whiff of a spoiler (Bruce Willis is a ghost.)

The movie is made up of a giallo-esque series of murders, each of which spiral down the taste level chart until Fulci is channeling his meanest of mean juju. A murder on the Staten Island ferry is tense and shocking, a broken bottle goes places no broken bottle has any right to be, and many a boob is sliced. The violence is graphic, but not quite as lingering as Fulci's 'The Beyond' or 'House by the Cemetery'. That is until we reach the climax, where an incidental character is tied up and tortured in a truly heinous slice of exploitation nastiness. Nipples are sliced in two with a razor blade and the eyeball scene from 'Un Chien Andalou' is given a run for its money. This is the scene that so incensed the joykills at the BBFC during its original submission for certification, the film had to be escorted out of the country with an armed guard.

The swinging couple are the most intriguing in the film in my opinion. The wife dresses in what looks like a sexy spy Halloween costume from Poundland and the husband seems to have sprayed a light layer of grey paint over his hair and face. We are first introduced to Sexspy in the audience of a live sex show. She is watching and manipulating herself in way which causes her to moan in a bizarre caucophony. She is also recording this on her dictaphone that she presumably borrowed from the school French department. A later scene shows her going into a pool hall and seducing a couple of young studs. How could they resist her spy charms?

This is how the subtle wordless scene plays out:

She finally gets furious about her toe powered rub-a-dub on the bearded lady and storms out of the pool hall. In a film already full of grubby sex and violence, this scene is strikingly weird and pointless. I guess the audience needed a little more foot based eroticism to go along with all the brutal tit slashing.

Overall, the film is worth watching if only for a glimpse of pre-clean up New York. There are countless shots along 42nd street showing fleapit grindhouses and XXX porno theatres in all their scummy glory. Some of the titles showing that I spotted include 'Final Exam', 'Mean Drunken Master', and 'Slaughter in San Francisco'. Fulci's skill for surrealism makes a fleeting appearance in a tense chase in a porno cinema in a scene which I feel encapsulates the entire film. Murder, sexual deviancy, and filthy acts on 42nd street. If this sounds appealing then check this mean little picture out. The ending actually hits with quite an unexpected emotional punch but it shows Fulci's true love of the cruel and the hopeless. 

BEST SCENE: Porno cinema nightmare chase.

BEST EXTRA: The radio DJ clearly channeling 'The Warriors' who politely asks the killer "Why baby? Please leave the ladies alone!"

BEST DIALOGUE: "Sweetheart, I'm a prostitute not your wife."

DOUBLE BILL MATERIAL: Maniac (1980), The Killer is Still Among Us (1986), Sex Wish (1974)