Movieline Online

The essay included in Blue Underground's 3-Disc Limited Edition of Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper boldly proclaims, "This is the type of horror film our mother's warned us about!" And that statement couldn't be more correct. This is a film that wallows in sex, sleaze, and gore in a way that, even by Italian standards, pushes the boundaries of bad taste. And yet, perhaps because it's so artfully shot while being fearlessly inappropriate, it's more compelling than almost any other exploitation film out there. Sometimes it takes a foreign director to uncover the hidden beauty (or dark underbelly) of locations we all take for granted. The maestro of Italian gore, Fulci had several nauseating set pieces to his credit already in the early '80s. But he gets the most out of his visit to New York this time around, with surprisingly effective use of famous iconography, including a beautifully filthy 42nd steet contrasted with the stunning NYC...

The modern home invasion genre has its roots in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange , wherein Alex and his droogs torture and rape a well-to-do-couple while crooning along to "Singing in the Rain." It's still an unsettling scene 47 years later, in part because, despite Kubrick's penchant for elegantly composed shots, this particular scene is crudely handheld, forcing the viewer to become unwilling accomplices to the psychological carnage. It's just one of the lessons German director Michael Haneke lifts for his own self-aware take on the genre, 1997's Funny Games . Arriving at their lake house, Anna, George and their young son have their vacation rudely interrupted by a pair of well-dressed hooligans - Peter and Paul - who take them hostage and stage a series of games to amuse themselves. As the sadistic evening continues, Anna and George realize that there's no reasoning with their captors and a fight for their family's survival ensues. ...

Westerns recycle better than any other genre, repurposing old plots, sets, scenery, even actors in such a way that each new production seems, if not quite "fresh," then at least a few weeks away from its "use by" date. 1959's Warlock isn't adding anything particularly new with its story of a community desperately in search of a lawman to handle a herd of out of control cowboys (in fact, Blazing Saddles would lift the entire scenario wholesale 15 years later). But the characters presented here are far from stereotypical; and director Edward Dmytryk's film is anything but a spoof. The town of Warlock has gone through more than its fair share of deputies, all either killed or run out of town by Abe McQuown (Tom Drake) and his gang of rowdy cattle-rustlers, which includes one soft-spoken conscientious objector, Johnny Gannon (Richard Widmark), who thinks things have gone too far. In a last ditch effort, civic leaders hire on Clay Blaisedell (Henry Fo...