31 Days of Horror 2023 Day 06 The New York Ripper

 

TITLE-The New York Ripper

SOURCE-Blue Underground DVD

First off thanks to CodyLL for hooking me up with this DVD. Sure I had seen  it before getting this DVD. Hell first time I saw it was a bootleg VHS that I was told was a  rip of the rare Japanese laserdisc.

After the surprise world wide success of Zombi,Fulci  kept making gory horror movies. With New York Ripper becoming infamous for it's gory and just how dark it subject matter is. Well that and the murderer quacking like a duck. Yep the killer in this gory Giallo QUACKS LIKE A DUCK. And the killer isn't shitfaced drunk trying to piss on the side of the interstate,yes I know maybe 5 people reading this will get that super inside joke.

Beside the gore the only other thing this movie has going for it is all the shot on location stuff. Made in NYC in the early 80s this is a film that gives you a close look at how sleazy and grimy parts of NYC were back then. I love all the scenes of people going thru the 42nd street area of New York City. Odd I have been to NYC 3 times in my life. But the only two areas of the city I can name,and I knew of both long before I visited are 42nd street and the corner of 53rd and 3rd. The first of course was famous all over for being the sleazy captitol of the east coast. The latter because of the Ramones song Dee Dee wrote.

Now as you can see at the top of the DVD cover it says Special Edition. This is one of the weakess Special Editions I have ever seen. The film had already been released fully uncut in the US before this release. The only new stuff is a short interview with actress Zora Kerova,which is mostly subtitled. And a very very very short,under 6 minutes,extra titled NYC locations then and now. Oh and they got the films trailer. Which is a neat extra. There is some different dialogue in the trailer than from the film. The scene with the morgue worker describing how the killer mutilated someone has very very different words in tthe trailer when compared to the version in the film.

Ok yea this isn't even close to the best storywise film from Fulci. Pretty much the little story that is here is just to get us to the next kill. Heard some people call this the worst of Fulci's 80s work. Guessing they have never seen Manhatten Baby.

New York Ripper gets a C+

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 19 House by the Cemetery

 

TITLE-The House by the Cemetery

SOURCE-Joe Bob's Last Drive In airing on Shudder

Some how this Lucio Fulci classic escaped me. Never found the VHS for rent or for sale. Never saw the DVD for sale. And after a bit I just forgot about it.

Skip ahead to near the end of winter in 2004. My wallet was flush with cash from my recent income tax return. After stopping at a near by Mom&Pop electronics store,bought a 42 inch Samsung Plasma tv,I went across the street to the local mall. Figuring I would buy a few DVDs to watch on my new TV. At a FYE I saw they were having a big sale. Spend 40 bucks and get 2 free DVDs out of their clearance bin. After grabbing a few wrestling DVDs and a couple of comedies I was over the 40 buck threshold. Went to dig into the clearance bin and saw.

I knew that Horror Rises from the Tomb was a Paul Naschy film. And after seeing Fury of the Wolfman and Werewolf vs the Vampire Women I was interested in seeing more of his films. I had no clue what the other 3 films on this set was. Plus since it was 2 discs,flippers with one movie per side,FYE counted it as 2 DVDs. I thought Fuck it! It's a Paul Naschy film I had never seen so I picked it as my free DVDs.

After I got home and hooked up the new TV,this set got place on the ever growing "To Be Watched"pile. And there it sat for a few years. When I moved again in early 2007 we went a few days without cable. So that To Be Watched pile shrunk some. This is when I learned that Zombie Hell House was just a retitled version of Fulci's The House by the Cemetery. 

From what I can find online Zombie Hell House is a UK retitling of the film. I'm guessing Brentwood,who put out the Horror Rises from the Graves set,just assumed this edit of the film was Public domain and released it.

After watching House by the Cemetery I saw why it was loved and hated. You start off right with a nice kill

With a knife to the back of a lady's skull. I wasn't prepared for the next scene though. We got another place. And are introduced to Bob....

As soon as he appeared on the screen I realized two things. First I had seen this same actor before in Warriors of the Wasteland,a great Mad Max Italian ripoff with Fred Williamson and George Eastman. And secondly once Bob spoke  I saw why everybody I knew that saw this film talked about how bad the dubbing for Bob was. He sounds like a 40 year old woman trying to do a young male kid's voice. It is so bad that the actor that plays Bob has at conventions and in interviews apologized for the dubbing.

Bob and his family move into the house where we saw the woman get knife to the skull. And shit just gets weirder. For example a bat comes into the house and attacks them. The dad manages to kill it in a fairly bloody way.

It being a Fulci movie I expected gore. And I'm a bit use to Italian horror films not always making lots of sense. This film has piles of stuff that just doesn't fit or make sense. Like when the mother comes into a room,sees the nanny cleaning blood off the floor. And after being told the nanny had just made coffee the Mom never mentions the big blood stain!

From what I have read an early home video release of this film got a couple of the film reels out of order. So you would see people die,then later on they were back alive. Which I'm sure back in the day people just chalked up to Italian horror not always making sense.

This isn't top tier Fulci horror. But it isn't his worse. The best way to watch this is with a group. And never ever try to figure out what the fuck is going on. Treat it like a nightmare and allow the dream logic to just flow.

The House by the Cemetery gets a C+.

31 days of Horror 2012 day 02

Paura nella città dei morti viventi AKA City of the Living Dead AKA Gates of Hell
1980
Blue Underground DVD

This is the first film from infamous Italian director Lucio Fulci that I ever saw. I found it,under the Gates of Hell title,for rent at Homeport Video out in Forts Lake Mississippi. I had never heard of it before,but on the box cover was a warning that said cause of extreme scenes of violence and gore it was recommended that no one under the age of 18 see the movie. That right there was  a huge clue that I must see this movie. I had to be about 13 at the time. Got home with the VHS through it in and sat down to watch it while I ate my dinner. At the time I had no idea this was an Italian film,and also had no idea who Lucio Fulci was. But after watching the film I knew that I must own a copy. So before returning the VHS to the video store I hooked up 2 VCRs and made myself a copy. Fast forward almost 20 years and I was in Circuit City and looking for some new horror DVDs to buy. I saw saw a DVD titled City of the living dead,and since I have always loved zombies movies I picked it up and read the description on the back of the case. It sounded kind of familiar to me,but it didn't connect it to Gates of Hell. I saw that Blue Underground had put it out,and I knew that they always did great work on their DVD releases so I bought it. Well the DVD sat on my shelf for years before I even opened it up. Then sometime in 2008 I threw it in late one night when I was looking for some thing to watch. After about 10 minutes I realized I had seen it before. So I looked it up on the internet and realized it was also known as Gates of Hell.

The film is about how after a priest commits suicide in a graveyard he opens up one of the Gates of hell. And zombies pour through this gate and invade the town. A reporter played by Christopher George finds out that the gate most be closed by All Saint's day. If this doesn't happen the zombies will end up taking over the world. Like most Fulci horror films,City of the Living Dead doesn't have the most amazing plot. But what it does have is great atmosphere and some really well done practical FX work. We get one well done scene where Giovanni Lombardo Radice gets killed by a drill to his head. Then what is one of the best known deaths in any Fulci film, when one lady ends up puking up all her intestines. This effect was done by having the actress swallow some sheep intestines and then having her regurgitate them. And it works really well. First time I saw the movie,like I mentioned above,I was eating my dinner and the gut puking part almost made me puke. One complaint I hear from most people is how the film really has no ending. This is cause the last reel of film got messed up and Fulci didn't have the money or time to re-film it. So we get a crappy non-ending ending. But if you are a fan of 80s Italian horror City of the Living dead is worth at least a rental. I know that a few years ago Blue Underground released this on Blu Ray. And at the same time put out a new edition on DVD. These newer releases have a really good making of documentary. The DVD I have is bare bones. Besides the film ,you get a trailer and a fact file on Fulci. City of the Living Dead gets a B+.