After The Driller Killer and Ms .45, Abel Ferrara made this another New York City end-of-the-century trip into sleaze and death. He was joined by regular writer Nicholas St. John, who was fine doing the script for 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy but couldn’t deal with Bad Lieutenant.

Matt Rossi (Tom Berenger) and Nicky Parzeno (Jack Scalia) have a good thing going, getting their exotic dancers — Maria Conchita Alonso is one of them — booked into the best men’s clubs in the Big Apple. Matt used to be a boxer and was in love with one of the girls, Loretta (Melanie Griffith), but then he beat a man to death and became a shell of who he once was, and she found herself seeking solace between the shapely thighs of Leika (Rae Dawn Chong).

Someone starts targeting their girls, like Honey (Ola Ray, Michael Jackson’s girlfriend in the “Thriller” video), who is beaten and torn apart by someone. Detective Al Wheeler (Billy Dee Williams) isn’t much help, as he looks down on Rossi, Parzeno, and their girls. Leila is attacked and hospitalized, which lets Rossi get back with Loretta.

Unlike many Giallo, we see Pazzo (John Foster), the killer, early and know who he is throughout. He’s a young kid obsessed with martial arts. His attacks have ruined the dancing business, and once Leila dies, Loretta starts taking every drug she can, dying inside. Then, the killer attacks Ruby (Janet Julian) and Parzeno, as well as cutting the head off one of the girls with a sword.

Rossi turns to Carmine (Rossano Brazzi, Count Frankenstein from Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks), a crime boss who he has an accord with. He tells him that the only way to stop this is to murder the killer and get this over with. That’s simple, as the knife-wielding maniac is already stabbing Loretta, who was looking to score. Rossi remembers his days in the ring and punches the man’s face into putty, killing him. The cops seem happy about it, but that’s life in Fear City.

How Giallo is this? Well, the credits thank J & B Distillery.

Fear City was originally to be a 20th Century Fox movie, but because it contained so much sex and violence, they sold it to Aquarius Releasing—or Chevy Chase Distribution—the people who brought you Dr. Butcher, M.D. and 7 Doors of Death, which was The Beyond with edits.

Don Nakaya Neilsen is in the cast as a boxer. Trained by Benny “The Jet” Urquidez and Tom Stone—the man who cucked Elvis and wrote Enter the Ninja—he was a kickboxer who eventually became a pro wrestler in New Japan Pro Wrestling and did an MMA match with Ken Shamrock that was quite influential in Japan. He also got chiropractic treatments legalized in Thailand, so he lived a pretty eventful life before dying young at 58.

You can watch this on Tubi.