|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
New York Ripper (1987)
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Media: Specific Titles:
Film / Movies (Fiction):
New York Ripper (1987)
Author: Stephen P. Ryder
Monday, 19 July 1999 - 05:56 pm |        | New York Ripper
Running Time: 88 Minutes (In Color). 1987. Vidmark Entertainment Video
 |
Author: Jill
Tuesday, 20 July 1999 - 10:51 pm | | Is this a movie based on a novel? Because I've read, many years back, a novel about a scientist who had a time travel machine, which JtR (a doctor friend of this scientist) used, after the scientist suspects him of being the Ripper. They end up in the eighties (I believe) in New York, where many sliced up female bodies are found. I don't remember the authors name and the title anymore.
Jill |
Author: anon
Tuesday, 20 July 1999 - 11:48 pm | | | I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Time After Time. H.G. Wells goes back in time to catch JtR, finding himself in 1970s San Francisco. Time After Time was both a book and a movie. More info on the film is available elsewhere on these boards. |
Author: Jill
Wednesday, 21 July 1999 - 01:17 am | | | anon- That's the right one, thank you. I seemed to have scipped that board while searching for anything that resembled it. And I seemed to have mixed everything up. It was maybe 10 years ago I read it, and as a teenager I didn't had a peculiar interest in the Ripper case to remember much about it. |
Author: Cindy Collins Smith
Tuesday, 21 January 2003 - 12:03 am | | NEW YORK RIPPER is not a Jack the Ripper film. It's not even about a Ripper copycat, though JtR IS mentioned at one point during the investigation.
This film is what I call a "Faux Ripper" movie(i.e. a film which uses "Ripper" in one of its titles--generally for marketing reasons--but which is not about JtR).
At any rate, this film is an Italian giallo film, by ultraviolent filmmaker Lucio Fulci. The killer in this movie is extremely sadistic (in the film's most famous scene, the killer slits a woman's eyeball with a razor), and he taunts the NYPD by phoning them up and speaking in a duck-quack voice.
Though this film fits into the giallo subgenre of Italian horror, it is not really representative of gialli as a whole. The giallo subgenre generally combines murder mystery, high body count, variety of killing styles, dazzling cinematography, and the ultimate unraveling of the mystery... kind of like HALLOWEEN (part ONE!) and FRIDAY THE 13TH (part ONE!)--though neither of those movies has the high cinematic style of the typical giallo.
FYI: gialli are pretty violent films. BUT in NEW YORK RIPPER Lucio Fulci goes beyond the violence of the standard giallo film... particularly those by filmmakers like Mario Bava and Dario Argento. That's why I'm saying it's not really a representative giallo.
The ultraviolence is not really surprising, given that one of Fulci's script writers was also one of the writers for Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST... a movie so extreme that many people thought it was a snuff film. Actually, you could say it was so extreme that it got banned in ITALY!!! (I believe that it's still banned to this day in the U.S.).
At any rate, this movie is NOT a JtR film. It is well-made, presents an interesting mystery, and really explores the seedy side of New York. But this film is NOT recommended for anybody who does not have a very strong stomach or who does not want to watch extreme screen violence. I'm saying that as a critic who has seen the film for professional reasons, but who does not generally watch movies THIS violent for pleasure.
So consider yourselves warned! :-) |
Author: Kevin Braun
Tuesday, 21 January 2003 - 10:13 am | | Cindy,
Interesting that you should mention Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. Last Halloween I had a party at my house attended by 20-25 friends, which featured a midnight showing of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. By 00:40, only a handful of friends remained. The film is a witty, shocking and gruesome take on Mondo documentaries. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT's film makers certainly saw and borrowed heavily from CH. When CH was released in 1979, many thought it to be a real snuff film.
Deodato wrote......
And so it was. The "premiere" of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST took place in Colombia, where most of the photography had been done. A friend of mine phoned, saying that there were long lines in front of the cinema and the press was writing terrible things about me.
'I left for Bogota because I wanted to gauge the success of the movie with my own eyes. My friend came to fetch me at the airport and that night we went to a celebration that supposedly had been organized for me. It wasn't true. I was attacked by everybody, and journalists called my hotel room throughout the night, asking for interviews.
'With the help of my friend, I escaped from the hotel and, because I couldn't go to the airport, I went by car to Cartagena and from there to the small island of Rosario. After a week, I left Cartagena for Miami. Later, in Rome, I learned why they were so angry with me: A member of the Colombian crew gave interviews to all the Colombian [media] networks claiming that the director Deodato really had killed the Indios and the whole crew had watched these crimes helplessly. These rumours probably found their way to Italy. When CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST was first released here, a young judge sequestered the movie, perhaps because he was looking for publicity. It was the time of the brigate rosse in Italy, and the authorities wanted to show that any kind of violence should be condemned, so they found an old law forbidding the corrida or any other violence to animals. I was condemned to four months in jail, with probation, and I had to pay all expenses and legal fees.
You may also be interested to know that recent video releases of CH may have at least one scene edited from the original 35mm.
Rumors that a piranha scene existed in CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST go way back. When the film was released theatrically, various newspapers and magazines commented on the film’s viciousness, including a "piranha" sequence that was especially gruesome. The sequence apparently showed the feeding of a live person (struggling as he is bound by loose ropes to the end of a log) to those notorious denizens of the Amazon, the piraya, or piranha. In some notably reference guides we find elusive references to this "never filmed" scene: "Rarely screened in its complete version, this picture, which was shot on location offers a catalogue of cruelty visited upon animals and people: a bound person is thrown into a river as bait for piranha fish, …and so on." (Phil Hardy, OVERLOOK FILM ENCLYCLOPEDIA)
A must see for all serious film buffs.
Take care,
Kevin |
Author: Cindy Collins Smith
Tuesday, 21 January 2003 - 11:18 am | | Hi Kevin,
Yeah, I hope it didn't sound like I was dismissing CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is an absolutely brilliant film about the artificial dichotomy between civilization and savagery. Your assessment of the film and its influence on BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is absolutely spot-on. And btw, I enjoyed your anecdote about most of your friends leaving the party before the film was half-way through.
Much as I recognize the film's power, though, I don't intend to watch it again, mainly because the violence done to animals IS real. I mean, if they could fake the impaled girl and the castration/rape/beheading stuff at the end, they probably could have gotten around actually cutting off the tortoise's legs one at a time before beheading it. I just have issues with killing and torturing animals to get a movie made, y'know? I don't think cinema is worth animals' lives.
BUT I don't think Deodato's treatment in Italy was justified on those grounds. I do think it's a tribute to the film's success in achieving its objective that people thought the Indios had actually been killed during the making of the movie.
Well, I'd better stop before this turns into an Italian horror thread! But NEW YORK RIPPER certainly does inspire discussions like these. And I think Gianfranco Clerici's contribution to both films makes this discussion relevant and only slightly tangential.
See ya,
Cindy |
Author: Kevin Braun
Tuesday, 21 January 2003 - 12:14 pm | | Cindy,
Thanks for the response. I loved your comment, "CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is an absolutely brilliant film about the artificial dichotomy between civilization and savagery." Who are the real savages?
Take care,
Kevin |
|
|
|
|
