Review of New York Ripper

Introduction

There`s a nutter loose in New York and he`s cutting up girls at random, whether they`re wholesome types or prostitutes or just rich women who like having sex with a bit of rough.

Some police detective, can`t be bothered to look up his name, tries vainly and incompetently to catch the killer, who taunts him on the phone. The detective hooks up with a nerdy professorial type who looks forward to the next killing so he can gather more data on the killer.

Soon the police are hunting a bloke with two fingers missing as their main suspect. But is he the one? Or is it the young professor? Or someone else? Or…

Ah, who cares…

Video

Picture is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, which means that my screen is about equal in picture and blackness on my 32" screen. On the plus side, I`ve never found black stripes so welcome a diversion.

There are varying degrees of picture damage, although unfortunately nothing too bad. The SFX are appalling, maybe they were acceptable in 1982. I don`t know as I never watched horror films then. There`s lots of blood, supposed entrails bursting from wounds and a rather horrific (in the quality sense) of a close up bullet wound to the face.

Audio

Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 soundtrack with possibly the most inappropriate soundtrack ever. This is a horror movie, supposedly, soundtracked like a 70`s TV US cop show. There is no tension at all. The dubbing is extremely bad, not so much the lipsyncing which is ok, but the accents and voice tones. Clearly voice actors who learnt English but never spoke to English people or watch English telly or films.

Features

Theatrical trailer - think I may have been better off just watching this, it would have been shorter.

Forthcoming attractions - attractions? Is this against the Sales Description Act?

Conclusion

This film was banned in the UK until relatively recently in history. Now released, it still has approximately 34 seconds of gruesome violence cut by the BBFC. All I can say is that they didn`t cut enough. And not just of the violence either.

I can honestly say that this is one of the most pointless films I`ve ever watched. I don`t know enough about Italian cinema, thank god, but this is just so bad it`s unreal. The director has a thing about sex and violence, and so there`s plenty of nudity and on-screen sex, including an entirely pointless foot massage (where the foot is used rather than massaged) that seems to be there purely to humiliate the character.

The dubbing is bad enough but the dialogue is incredibly corny. Very few lines delivered feel realistic, it`s more shocking than the horror. Speaking of shocking, when the killer is taunting his victims or the police he sounds like a demented Donald Duck. The reason for this becomes apparent towards the end, but the whole subplot of that is as poorly handled as everything else. Attempts at character development are poor and ultimately you have no sympathy for anyone.

Therefore, pointless.