Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

PaulyC This movie qualifies for a certain category. That being"Cheesy, 80's Horror." A tired and worn out cop, must investigate the murders of several women brutally cut up with a knife by a killer who kills his victims talking in a duck-like voice. No joke. He even taunts Police by calling them and talking in the same "duck" voice. Believe it or not, this quirk by the killer is explained in the end. Kind of amusing actually. As someone who is oddly obsessed with just about all movies taking place in the 70's or early 80's in Manhattan, i automatically was interested in this. All the 80's cheese is firmly in place. The cheese ball dialog, "You got a brain of a chicken!", the sub-par acting, etc. Lots of nudity and blood fill the screen which is the main attraction for this kind of film anyway. Directed by Lucio Fulci, this is known as one of his most brutal horror films in a resume of many. An okay movie for what it is. If you like movies as I've just described, check it out!

m_n_tomlinson Anyone expecting some low grade, squalid video nasty is going to be sorely disappointed. This is one of those films that's much better than its reputation suggests. What we actually have here is a highly intelligent and articulated thriller! Sure there is some of the Fulci trademark gore, but in this case it's better handled, more taut, and less excessive! The film also utilizes some great location shots in and around New York, and the camera-work and editing is top notch! I found the film to be outstanding in it's competence, and wish there were more out there like this. This is a work of an experienced director and crew and not amateurs. I fear it may have been banned, cut and trashed mainly due to it's association with the director's name, and the highly evocative and chilling, but iconic title of the film! Finally I found what could have turned out to be silly.. the maniacal quacking of the Ripper to be inspired and genius. This alone raises the movie 'beyond' the realms of your standard murder, mystery and suspense fare!

Bezenby It's easy to see this film as an over the top gore and sleaze fest, because superficially that's what it is, but am I the only one who thought that The New York Ripper was Fulci's first attempt at parody, in the vein of Cat in the Brain?I get the feeling here that this film is Fulci's attack on the US and what viewers in the states want from Italian movies. He sets it in and around 42nd street, where many of these splatter films played, and uses that general area to wallow in the gore and sex, cranking up the violence to absurd levels, as he did in Cat in the Brain. It's as if he's saying 'This is what you want, so this is what you get' while having the killer speak like a duck, referring back to a much subtler play on the same theme. A reference to what used to sell in the US. As for the misogyny angle, I think that by having the killer played by the first openly gay Italian actor Fulci's having a bit of an in joke himself. I'm no film critic (as you can tell) but throughout the film Fulci seems to keep referring to the subtlety of horror, as can by noted by the final scene, which contains true, hopeless horror of disabled girl left without a father. That one scene for me convinces me that Fulci was trying to say 'Well, you've got gore and nudity, but here's true terror'. The girl asking for her father, alone in hospital, not knowing he's dead (and a killer), is Fulci's slap in the face to horror fans. It's the one truly chilling scene in the entire film. Maybe I'm reading too much into what's there, but he does the exact same thing again in Cat in the Brain. Perhaps he thought that the message in New York Ripper was too carefully hidden. Either that, or I've gone crazy watching too many Italian horror films.

KenLiversausage Lucio Fulci's films – at least the ones I've seen – never make much sense. That's fine when you're dealing with a fantasy subject like zombies. But in a would-be 'proper' whodunnit thriller such as The New York Ripper, plausibility is important if the thriller element is to work, and hence if the film as a whole is to work.Unfortunately, old Lucio and scriptwriter Dardano Sacchetti fail to grasp even this most basic tenet of the thriller genre. The 'plot', such as it is, is ludicrous, and the murderer even more so. As most of you will know, he's basically a psychotic version of Keith Harris minus Orville, ie he quacks like a duck when he's slitting women's throats, or gutting them like deer, or scoring their naked bodies oh so slowly and precisely with a razor blade.Which kind of makes you wonder what the point of this odious little film is. It isn't in the least bit thrilling, as it's quite obvious who the killer is from about four minutes in. Oh yeah, I know what the point of it is. The point of The New York Ripper is to showcase the graphic and sadistic murder of scantily clad or naked young women.Apparently chief British censor James Ferman was so outraged by The New York Ripper when it was screened for the BBFC back in the day, that he ordered all prints of it to be escorted from the country immediately, like it was a load of toxic nuclear waste that might infect people by osmosis if they even so much as went near it. And much as it pains me so say it, he kind of had a point.Because this is a deeply repellent film. It has no redeeming features whatsoever. It is badly made, badly acted, the special effects are rubbish, the plot is rubbish, the whole film is rubbish on every level. And of course, it features a series of highly graphic, pointless, sadistic and truly misogynistic murders. I should imagine Ian Brady would have liked The New York Ripper, but I cannot imagine any normal, sane person finding anything to enjoy in this piece of nasty trash.I don't believe in banning films, but if any film ought to be banned this is it. At least Fulci's zombie films are entertaining. The New York Ripper is about as entertaining as a hernia. And Fulci's zombie films, despite being replete with gore, are so silly and over the top that the gore is never offensive. There is a long and (fairly) honourable tradition of 'splatter' movies, and the Italians have long been in the vanguard. But with NYR Fulci drags that splendid reputation through the mud.As a long-time fan of horror movies, I confess I watched this movie on YouTube out of sheer curiosity. I now wish I hadn't. It made me feel dirty, ashamed even. Maybe that was the point, I don't know. But call me old fashioned, aren't films supposed to entertain in some way? There's nothing remotely entertaining, nothing remotely artistic about NYR. It's just sick, plain and simple. The people who made it are sick, and anyone who 'enjoys' it is sick, and quite possibly a danger to society.Writing about another horror film, a reviewer said "to sicken and disgust is about as artistic as picking your nose in public". Preach it brother.*****One deeply depressing footnote. According to what somebody has posted here, the US version of NYR "cuts out some sex scenes to avoid an X rating, but all the violence is intact". So the good old MPAA think its wrong to show women having sex, but fine to show them being tortured and murdered. What is wrong with the world?