Unseen Terror 2024: Quack You Ryhan (Day 11)

It dawned on me while assembling this year’s marathon that for the day when I grew one year older, I had nearly run out of film choices to watch from 1985. I’ve covered nearly all the heavy hitters (most of which I adore). Hell, I could have just cheated and listed off my favorite “Treehouse of Horror” episodes instead, but that would require more time than I expected. So, I decided to go back to the well of a country whose contributions to scary cinema rarely disappoint me: Italy! Specifically, I wanted to watch something that had been in my queue for several years and that would make me squirm a bit. Thankfully Lucio Fulci’s 1982 cult favorite giallo The New York Ripper (originally titled Lo squartatore di New York) was there to welcome me with bloody arms.

 

The plot is your basic “detective looking for a serial killer” trope, but what helps separate this one from the pack is just the all-around weirdness, ugliness, and brutality of it all. When your movie opens with a man playing fetch with his golden retriever, only for his dog to ignorantly bring back a decomposing, severed hand, you know that this isn’t going to be a simple procedural or anything you’d see on CBS evenings. For starters, this movie is super sleazy and grimy. Admittedly, I haven’t been to New York City in more than twenty years, but this movie dives into the darker and more “sensuous” side of the big apple that I’m sure some people reading this may not want to admit exists. There ain’t no Broadway Musical highlighting, but apparently in the world of The New York Ripper, you can attend live sex shows. So, there’s that! The violence is also unrepentantly BRUTAL (as is usually the case with Fulci), with our titular killer brandishing only a switchblade and straight-razors. If you know anything about Lucio Fulci (whose other works include bangers such as The Beyond, Zombie, and City of the Living Dead just to name a few), then you know there is also bound to be some eyeball violence thrown into the mix too, so brace yourself for that. There's also a memorable sequence involving a broken bottle that can be best described as "something you don't see every day."

But while the slayings seen on screen will certainly stick in your mind for a very long time, it’s the very odd (if not slightly jarring) decision to have our titular slasher constantly quacking at their victims while harassing and ultimately eviscerating them. I couldn’t fully tell if that was meant to be genuinely intimidating or if it was meant to be a parody, but I suppose that if you put yourself in the shoes of the people being stalked, it can be a bit disorienting? Even after laying out my rough draft for this, I can’t fully tell whether to put this into my list of “positives” or “negatives,” because it is just so peculiar. One genuine complaint I DO have though is that while the film does manage to do a surprisingly good job at keeping you guessing as to who the killer is (even after a moment that makes it seem SUPER obvious), there is a twist in its final act that comes in from out of NOWHERE that had me audibly asking why that needed to be there. It just kind of blindsides you with unnecessary exposition.

 

 

Lucio Fulci is an “acquired” taste, and The New York Ripper isn’t really an exception to that. It’s gratuitous, mean, and unsavory. I also think you could make an argument that it’s slightly misogynistic too unfortunately (his other contemporaries like Dario Argento tended to write stronger female characters). Still, flaws and all, I really had a ball with this one. If you have the stomach for it and want a nice heap of some blood-soaked cheese, throw this into your queue. As of the time of this review, it’s currently available to stream on Shudder and Tubi!

Unseen Terror 2019: Day 15

This wasn't supposed to happen god damn it.

Peaking this early is usually unheard of whenever I do this silly marathon.

I suppose that expecting quality from one of horror's most underappreciated artists was a given, but I still don't think that I was ready for Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. Being more than familiar with the man's body of work, this has somehow slipped though my fingers every time that I tried to watch it. Whether it was due to bad timing, the physical copy of the Blu-Ray being stolen from my job, or just laziness, the full-length feature that is widely considered by historians to be the best picture from the late Italian director just never quite made it onto the countdown. Seeing as how I'm now thirty-four, there were no more excuses left and I finally sat down, pressed play, and prepared for whatever would come about.

The plot to The Beyond is a fairly simple one, though it certainly doesn't unfold the way that you expect it to. A young woman named Liza inherits a hotel in Louisiana, and plans to re-open the establishment once renovations have been completed. Unbeknownst to her, the property has a sinister history to it: fifty-four years prior, a painter was brutally murdered by a suspicious band of townsfolk, who suspected the man of practicing black magic in an attempt to bring about hell on earth. Following a serious of bizarre (and occasionally fatal) accidents and an encounter with a blind girl named Emily who warns the new caretaker to leave the premises that she seems so intent on reopening, Liza begins to feel like something is very, very wrong with the inn. That is the best that I can do for The Beyond's plot, because what follows is a series of very odd, violent, and nightmarish sequences that make you wonder what is real and what isn't. This story is about confusing the audience, but not actually leaving them "confused." Look, I know that may sound very pretentious, but trust me on this one.

Cast-wise, the most memorable of this crew is easily actress Cinzia Monreale. Sporting white contact lenses and body language that gives the viewers an idea that there's more to her than meets the eye (I'll see myself out) to this mysterious stranger. The technical aspects of The Beyond are also impressive, and extra credit has to be given to cinematographer Sergio Salvati as well, whose previous work with Fulci on Zombie (aka Zombi 2) was equally impressive, and the two have been able to craft an otherworldly feel that permeates throughout a number of pictures. Then there's composer Fabio Frizzi, who in this humble geek's opinion, should be celebrated just as much as his fellow countrymen in Goblin. The score to The Beyond is equal parts grandiose and threatening, and the main theme in particular sounds as close to watching our world come to an end as I've heard in quite a while. But you don't want me to talk about how great the music or camera work is, do you? Nooooo, you want me to talk about the nasty material, a.k.a. what attracts a majority of newcomers to the world of Italian horror classics: the over-the-top gore. Well, I'm sorry to say, but The Beyond doesn't sport a single drop of blood. None. Nothing is spilled in the moments where a woman has sulfuric acid poured onto her face, or when a dog violently tears open someone's throat, or when someone is shot in the face which results in their head bursting like an egg that is thrown off the top of a building.

The bloodshed in The Beyond is some of the most ghastly that I've seen to date in any Unseen Terror entry, and it is so masterfully done that you'll be smiling like a madman right after squirming like a child at the doctor's office. To use music analogies: if the violence in Dario Argento's films were Neurosis, then this is Carcass. This means that if you're squeamish (one particular scene gave me uneasy flashbacks to when I was a child and freaked out over the film Arachnophobia), be very careful. So, now that the ass kissing is out of the way, I have to talk about some of the problems with this gem. As stated above, sometimes the movie starts to fall apart by filling in the time to do things because it's likely that Fulci and his crew think said moments are cool enough to make you realize that they're kind of irrelevant to the plot or make zero sense in the context of everything. The ending is also a bit of a head scratcher (and seems rather abrupt), but if you piece portions of the script together, it makes more sense.

I have at least sixteen other flicks to watch before October ends, but Lucio Fulci's The Beyond has set the bar pretty high for those to come. It's a dark, shocking, strange, bloody, and ultimately mesmerizing piece of Italian horror that is essential for anyone looking to venture out beyond the realm of "traditional" cinema, especially of the more grim variety. Unfortunately, it appears as those the exquisite Blu-Ray from Grindhouse Releasing is close to (if not already) going out of print, so acquiring a copy should be done as soon as possible. If you prefer your films streamed however, then you are in luck as Shudder has the film (along with many of Fulci's other works) available to watch whenever you have the free time, while Amazon Prime has it under the title when it was cut up and released in the U.S: 7 Doors of Death.

Heck while you're at it, go watch City of the Living Dead or Zombie too and we can argue about which of the three has the most repulsive sequences involving facial harm. We'll totally look like normal when doing so.

Tomorrow, I'm taking another quick break from full-length features in search of some...."creepy" television.