The New York Ripper
The New York Ripper is a 1982 film from Italy, directed by Lucio Fulci, running 87 minutes. reelscum files it under giallo and video nasty.
- Year
- 1982 · 1980s films
- Country
- Italy
- Runtime
- 87 min
- Director
- Lucio Fulci
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (28/100)
- Also known as
- New York Ripper · Psycho Ripper · The Ripper
- Banned in
- UK
Defined in the glossary: Giallo, Video nasty
Refused a BBFC certificate with the print reportedly escorted out of the country under guard.
Genuinely nasty and hard to defend. The killer quacks. It doesn't help.
The hardest Fulci giallo to defend, and he seems to have known it. A killer who taunts the police in a Donald Duck voice works his way through the women of a grimy early-80s New York, and the murders are protracted and mean-spirited in a way that goes past suspense into something uglier.
It is well made, which is part of the problem, and the Donald Duck detail tips the whole thing into a register nobody has ever quite explained. It was seized and banned across several countries.
Technically accomplished and thoroughly unpleasant. Know what you are getting.
Trailer
The numbers
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Where to watch
Legal options in USA
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Written about
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
- Gut-munchers: the Italian zombie boom, 1979 to 1983
There was no first one. Argento recut Romero, Fulci forged the sequel, and Italy spent four years feeding the British censors.
The cycle in depth
- The giallo, 1963 to 1976
A line of yellow paperbacks, a killer in black gloves, and Mario Bava building the American slasher a decade before Hollywood cashed the cheque.
- The Exorcist was banned on video in Britain by one censor
The Exorcist passed uncut for British cinemas in 1974, then had no legal UK video release from 1988 to 1999 because one censor would not certify the tape.
Filed alongside
Tenebrae
Argento's coldest and cleverest. That crane shot earns its reputation.
Torso
Sleazy for an hour, then a brilliant silent final act.
A Lizard in a Woman's Skin
Fulci does psychedelia. The dog scene got him prosecuted.
The Driller Killer
Abel Ferrara's debut. More interesting as a document of downtown New York.
Maniac
Savini's effects, Spinell's performance, and a very bleak little film.
Alice, Sweet Alice
American giallo in Catholic New Jersey. Genuinely disturbing and well acted.
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The one usually called the first giallo. Still half a krimi.
Mountain of the Cannibal God
The cannibal cycle in a dinner jacket, ex-Bond girl and real animal deaths included.
What Have You Done to Solange?
Unusually sad for a giallo, and much better for it.
Eaten Alive!
Lenzi recycling other films' footage into a Jonestown story. Grim work.
Don't Torture a Duckling
Fulci's best film and his angriest. A giallo about mob justice in a village.
Anthropophagus
Almost entirely people walking around an island. Then two minutes of infamy.