Torso is such a simple title. I’d rather call this film by its Italian name: I Corpi Presentano Tracce di Violenza Carnale, or The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence. Either way, it was directed by Sergio Martino and features none of the cast that he had come to use in his past films like George Hilton, Ivan Rassimov or Edwige Fenech.

It does, however, star British actress Suzy Kendall, who played the lead role of Julia in Dario Argento’s seminal The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. She’s so associated with giallo that she appeared as the main character’s mother in 2012’s ode to the genre, Berberian Sound Studio.

This is a film that wastes no time being strange. Or salacious. A photographer is shooting a soft focus lovemaking session between three women amongst creepy, eyeless baby dolls. By the time we register what is happening, we’re now in a classroom, where swooping pans and zooms refer us to the main cast of the film as we overhear a lecture and later a discussion about Pietro Perugino’s painting of Saint Sebastian. Did he believe in God? Or was he just trying to sell sentimentality? Could an atheist find himself able to translate religion to those with faith?

We cut to a couple making out in a car as a figure stalks them through the eye of the camera, making us complicit in the act of the killer. Quick cuts reveal the white-masked face of this maniac. The man runs after him while the girl doesn’t even care that they had a voyeur watching. As she waits for him to return to the car, but grows impatient. The headlights of the car cast her shadow large across the columns of a bridge. And their light is quickly extinguished by black-gloved hands. The camerawork here is really striking, keeping us watching for the killer, as we’re no longer behind his eyes. His attack is swift and ruthless, juxtaposed against the images of fingers penetrating the eyes of a doll.

The art professor (John Richardson, Black Sunday, The Church) and Jane (Kendall) meet by chance at a church where she challenges him to change his views on Perugino. As she returns from their somewhat romantic afternoon, Jane spies her friend Carol arguing in the car with a man who she believes is married.

Meanwhile, ladies of the evening walk the street, ending up with Stefano, a student who has been stalking Julie. He has trouble performing and the prostitute he’s with tells him that all the men with hang-ups always come her way. That said — even if he’s queer, he better pay the money. He flips out and attacks her, but she makes her escape.

We’re then taken to a hippy party that looks like it’s taking place inside Edward Lionheart’s Theater of Blood. There’s weed, there are acoustic guitars, there are bongos, there are dudes with neckerchiefs, there are motorcycles. Truly, there’s something for everyone. But after leading on two men, Carol just walks out into the mud. They try and chase her, but she makes her escape into the foggy night. We hear her footsteps through the swamp as she walks, exhausted and covered in mud. What better time for our white-masked killer to return? We see glimpses of him through the fog and then he is gone. Whereas in past films Martino ignored the murder scenes instead of story, here the violence is extended, placing the killer and his actions in full view. After killing the girl, he rubs mud all over her body before stabbing her eyes — again intercut with the baby doll imagery. Her blood leaks into the mud as the score dies down.

This scene really feels like what the first two Friday the 13th movies were trying to achieve, but of course several years before they were made.

A police detective is in front of the art class, showing images not of art, but of the crime scene. A piece of cloth has been found under the fingernails of one of the murdered students, Flo. And that same scarf was found on Carol’s body. It’s their duty to report seeing anyone who wore this scarf to the police, who want to cooperate with the students who normally riot and throw rocks at them.

Two of the men in the class — Peter and George — were the last two people to be seen with Carol, the ones who she turned down at the party. Meanwhile, Stefano continues to stalk Jane. The music in this film is so forward-leaning — tones play when the killer shows or during moments of tension.

A man calls Daniela and tells her that if she ever tells where she saw the red and black scarf, she’s dead. Fearing for her life, she tells her uncle, who lends his country home to her and her friends so that they can get away from the city while the killer is at large.

Oh yeah — I forgot the pervy scarf salesman, who the police are leaning on. Right after talking to the police inspector, he calls someone and asks for money to buy his silence. Whoever it is, they bought the scarf from him and wouldn’t want anyone else to know. They’ll also get out of town and head to the country. Coincidence? I think not!

Stefano is all over Dani, telling her that he needs her. She wants nothing to do with him. When she stares at him, she remembers seeing him wear the red scarf. She escapes — slamming the door in his face. She tells Jane that she remembers seeing him wear the scarf — and never again — the day Flo died. The whole time, the creepy uncle is watching the two girls. Jane offers to speak to Stefano, then meet the girls at the vacation home.

The street vendor is flush with cash, creeping along in the dark. A car starts to follow him. We see the black-gloved hands again as the car hits its victim again and again, bright red gore pouring all over the screen.

Jane goes to speak to Stefano, finding only strange baby dolls and letters to Dani asking her to love him and remember the promise that she made as a little girl. Jane is surprised by Stefano’s grandmother, who tells her that he left town.

The other girls are asleep on the train as someone watches them. A strange man enters their train car and sits down.

The camerawork in this movie feels as predatory as the perverts and killers that exist within it. Speaking of pervs, when the girls arrive in the countryside, the local men pretty much lose their minds, particularly over Ursula (Carla Brait, the man wrestling dancer from The Case of the Bloody Iris). She and Katia make out as a peeping tom watches, only for the killer to show up and off the leering man. There’s an amazing scene of the killer dumping the pervert into a well, shot underwater and staring upward as the body falls toward the lens.

Man, every man in this movie is scum. They’re either frightened boys or perverts wanting one chance to knock up a woman or scarred from past sexual encounters. None of them are positive, as even the uncle who gives Dani the villa seems way too interested in her. Every man is a predator at worst and a leering pervert at best.

Jane hurts her ankle when she gets overly excited about breakfast. A doctor arrives — the mysterious man from the train — and he gives her a pill, which knocks her out.

The girls go sunbathing while Jane recovers. Dani thinks she sees Stefano — complete with the red scarf — watching them. They return home and drink champagne, which Jane uses to wash down her sleeping pills.

A few minutes later, the door rings. It’s Stefano — the girls all scream — but he’s dead — the girls scream again — and the killer is behind him, holding the red scarf — now scream even louder! Instead of showing us the murders, Martino switches form, cutting to a ringing bell and Stefano being buried.

Jane wakes up, asking where her breakfast is. She’s obviously slept late as a result of the pills. She walks around the apartment, looking for Dani, Ursula and Katia, only to find a mess. Tossed chairs, bottles of beer and every single one of her friends murdered. Suzy Kendall is amazing in this scene, caught between fear and nausea. Unlike so many wooden giallo performances, she’s actually believable.

She hides as the killer comes back, forced to stay quiet and watch as he saws her friends into pieces. Even the ordinary world routine of the milkman arriving cannot stop the butchering of her friends, with her trapped just feet away.

This final act is completely unexpected, as up until now, the film had played by the rules of the giallo, the large number of victims versus a large number of red herrings.

In fact, this film is so packed with red herrings, even the cast had no idea who the killer was. Martino wouldn’t tell them who it was, so each of the actresses had her own theory as to who the killer was. And in the original script, the killer survived.

Now, instead of that traditional giallo structure as I mentioned above, it is the last survivor — a near prototype for the final girl — against a killer. Throw in that Julie can’t move well due to her leg and Martino has set up quite the suspenseful coda.

Trapped in the house, Julie tries to signal with a mirror, using Morse code. But it totally misses the heroic doctor’s sight. He places a call, but it doesn’t seem like it’s to Julie. She looks out the window and sees the killer coming back.

It turns out that the killer was the professor, who saw a childhood friend die trying to reach for a doll. He compares the other kills to dolls, with only Julie as a flesh and blood person. Everyone else was a bitch or played games with him or blackmailed him. He hacked Ursula and Katia to pieces like dolls as a result. Dani saw him. Carol may have seen him. And he killed Stefano when he saw him in the village. Death, he says, is the best keeper of secrets and then he sees Julie as a doll and tries to hang her. She’s saved at the last second by the doctor.

They battle into a farmhouse, across the yard and to a similar rock where we saw the younger professor watch his friend die. We hear a screen and have no idea who has been killed — but luckily for Jane, the doctor survives.  He discusses whether fate or providence had kept him in town, where he could save her. Perhaps it was written in the stars. Julie replies that Franz, the professor, would have been a realist and called it a necessity. Franz is dead and the dreamers live on.

The more times that I’ve watched this film, the more that I appreciate it and how it flips the genre conventions on their head and moves toward more of a slasher, with many of the giallo elements feeling tacked on somewhat to stay within the expected pieces of the form. A real clue that it’s really a slasher? The killings are more important than who the killer is.

Who are we to doubt the movie that Carlo Ponti brought us after Dr. Zhivago?

The Arrow Video 4K UHD release of Torso has a new 4K restoration by Arrow Films from the original camera negative. It has audio commentary by Kat Ellinger, author of All the Colours of Sergio Martino; interviews with Sergio Martino, Luc Merenda, Ernesto Gastaldi, Federica Martino and Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film. There’s also footage of the 2017 Abertoir International Horror Festival Q&A with Sergio Martino, alternate opening and closing credits from the US release, Italian and English theatrical trailers, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by Adrian Smith and Howard Hughes. You can get it from MVD.

Marcus Nispel directed the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003, so why shouldn’t he get a shot at Jason? This film is more than just a remake of the first film. It’s really a bit of the first four all in one, which is an interesting way to start a new version of the series.

We watch Jason (Caleb Guss as a kid, Derek Mears as an adult) as he watches his mother (Nana Visitor, voiced by Kathleen Garrett) get killed by a camp counselor. Thirty years later, he kills every single teen — Wade (Jonathan Sadowski), Richie (Ben Feldman), Amanda (America Olivo, also in the remake of Maniac) and Mike (Nick Mennell, Bob in the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween) — who has comes to Crystal Lake looking for marijuana, except for Whitney (Amanda Righetti), who reminds him of his mother.

Weeks later, some rich kids — Trent (Travis Van Winkle), Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), Chelsea (Willa Ford), Bree (Julianna Guill), Chewie (Aaron Yoo), Nolan (Ryan Hansen) and Lawrence (Arlen Escarpeta) — come to stay at a fancy cabin. They’re all fodder, too. Only Clay (Jared Padalecki), Whitney’s brother, can save her. Finally, Whitney acts like Jason’s mother and stabs him, but he comes back at the end, rising from the lake.

This is a slick, CGI animated take on the Jason mythos. Writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon also wrote Freddy vs. Jason and they have some decent ideas. No matter what, this had to be a hard movie to make, as there will be people that hate it no matter what. I’m more into the Savini school of gore, so there’s a lot of this that didn’t work for me. It’s not a horrible film by any means. It does look gorgeous, as this had a major horror cinematographer — Daniel Pearl from Texas Chainsaw Massacre — filming the movie. And while it did well at the box office — $92.7 million at the box office on a budget of $19 million — it was the end of the series. There are so many reasons for that, but it’s been too long since there’s a new film.

The package for this Arrow 4K UHD and blu ray is amazing. It has a double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin, a limited edition Greetings from Crystal Lake postcard, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Matt Konopka and Alexandra West, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin. On the discs, you’ll discover both the theatrical and killer cuts of the movie with two new commentary tracks for the theatrical cut, one by director Marcus Nispel and another by  writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon; an interview with cinematographer Daniel Pearl; A Killer New Beginning, an exclusive video essay about why horror fans shouldn’t fear remakes, what 2009’s Friday the 13th remake gets right, and why the film serves as a perfect template for future franchise remakes by film critic Matt Donato; terror trivia; archival features; deleted scenes; the original teaser, trailer and TV commercials; a press kit and an image gallery. The Killer version has audio commentary by film critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson.

You can get this from MVD.

This film started when producer Amanda L. Manuel approached director Michael Todd Schneider to direct her first short film, which is the chapter “Manna” in this movie. Manuel had other story concepts and brought on other directors, including a few who did not appear in the final movie like Richard Stanley (who supposedly was never part of this), Andrey Iskanov (whose segment was complete but needed new sound and some new footage which was too expensive to go to Russia for) and José Mojica Marins (who left the project).

After years of this movie getting press, it finally debuted in August of 2022. There were screenings of some parts of it and the reports were that the film was no good. Yet nine years later, here it finally is.

The film begins in a Paris nightclub that houses a secret society and The Room of Souls, a private gathering place for the world’s richest and most evil people. Madame Sabatier allows each of them to tell a story and attempt to impress one another.

The first segment is “Mother May I,” directed by Anthony DiBlasi, has Sister Sylvia abusing the girls in her halfway house for sins both real and imaginary.

Yoshihiro Nishimura (Meatball Machine, Kyûketsu Shôjo tai Shôjo Furanken) brings the next movement, which is entitled “The Hell-Chef” and is a quick cut artistic tale of two young Japanese women eviscerating and devouring a man. It’s quick, to the point and well-made, even if there’s no rhyme or reason, which is the point one figures.

The third chapter is “Basement,” directed by Uwe Boll. This is based on the Josef Fritzl case, which was also made into a documentary, Monster: The Josef Fritzl Story. It’s short and well-made, shockingly among the best of the entire film. That said, if you want to watch Clint Howard have sex with his character’s daughter, well…this movie may just be for you.

It’s followed by the part I was most excited about, “Bridge,” directed by Ruggero Deodato. Sadly, it’s only three minutes long and just when it seems like it has some steam, it quickly ends.

Marian Dora, which is a pseudonym for an anonymous German creative, contributes “Mors in Tabula,” which is the same title as another Dora short. This one has a boy being operated on while his father helps the surgeon in a sequence that shows plenty of surgical nightmares over an Aryan rally soundtrack. There’s no real story, just shocks, which is pretty much the Grand Guignol feel of this entire enterprise.

“Tophet Quorom” is directed by Sergio Stivaletti (Italian special effects master and the director of The Wax Mask). It’s pretty wild and is has some incredible gore, like a jaw being ripped off, a practical werewolf transformation and an infant sacrifice. Now, as you can see from that description, this tale of a woman looking for the missing twin baby she’s just given birth to might not be for everyone — again, a running theme.

Ryan Nicholson (Gutterballs, Hanger) seems like the perfect person to be part of this and his segment “Goodwife,” in which a woman learns her husband is a killer and joins him in his depravity, might be the limit for some people. There’s no humor in this, just shock upon shock, the kind of madness that seems like someone working out more than just a horror film if it wasn’t so well shot. Apply liberally every trigger warning ever.

I loved Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes, so I was excited for his segment “Sins of the Fathers.” A son has recreated the room he grew up in to place his elderly father into the same mindset he was in while the man abused him. It’s an intriguing idea that could make up its own film.

“Manna,” directed by Michael Todd Schneider goes from BDSM club to that most unimaginable — and impossible of fetishes, vore. That means that someone gets off from being consumed and what follows is a man being treated like he’s the Old Country Buffet for an entire room of latex clad women who break him down and make a meal of him.

“Amouche Bouche” is directed by Jeremy Kasten (The Attic Expeditions) and shows more human meat being prepared and eaten, which seems like how this movie should finish.

This is a movie made for extreme horror fans featuring some of their favorite directors. As such, people who think Hollywood horror is disgusting should probably stay home or keep this out of their streaming device. For those of a sicker bent — and I say that lovingly but also you never get to play with my dog — this is for you.

The Unearthed Films blu ray of The Profane Exhibit is filled with extras, such as an audio commentary by director Michael Todd Schneider, producer Amanda Manuel and Ultra Violent Magazine‘s Art Ettinger; interviews with Jeremy Kasten, Uwe Boll, Amanda Manuel and Michael Todd Schneider; a mini-documentary Ten Years Later by Marion Dora; Awakened Manna, footage from the world premiere, a gallery and trailers. You can get this from MVD.

Honestly, I’m more excited that there’s a sequel to A Good Man than any other movie this year.

Remember last time, when Ethan Carter (Joel Smith) barely got over his ex-wife when he got engaged to Arianna (Ebony Tates) and she ended up getting done from behind by her Kaos (King Wesley) which led to him, well, killing everyone, including Kaos’ wife and teenage son because Ethan had been a good man way too long.

Fast forward a few months for the next episode. Ethan and his partner Matt (Robert Q. Jackson) are trying to go beyond real estate and into development with the whitest Irish guy ever, Miles (William Swift) and get rich. Well, Ethan already had $4 million of his own money, so for me, he’s already rich. Richer. The problem? He hasn’t gotten past Arianna and keeps dreaming about her, which causes him to have flashbacks when he’s shaking sheets with Shalice (Fancy Jones), his new girlfriend. Maybe she didn’t think he was hard enough. Maybe she didn’t think he was a violent man. The dude has cut dudes chest’s open while their whole family watched, so when he starts choking her, he really starts choking her and not in a loving “This is kinky like Spencer’s Gifts so not really” way. So she runs out and he’s a crying naked mess on the floor.

Also: Arianna’s mom Sheila (Tonja Brown) is the only person who doesn’t think that she just ran off with Kaos. She thinks Ethan is a killer. Even the cops won’t believe her.

Ethan confesses the entire crime spree to his brother James (Johnathan C. Williams), who helped him dispose of the bodies. But as soon as they finish talking, Detective Evans (Bianca Williams) and Parnell (James Abernathy) show up from missing persons, as Arianna’s mother finally got through to the police.

Meanwhile, Detective Evans’ husband Aaron (Steven Weed) accidentally shot a kid which has led to the two of them battling. If you don’t see it coming when she falls for Ethan, you haven’t been watching Tubi Originals with the intensity of mainlining heroin like your author does.

Someone is following Evans and Ethan. It’s Parnell, who used to date her before she got back with her husband. He threatens to tell his boss and get her taken off the case. That night, as Ethan prepares for his big date with Evans, Sheila shows up drink and with a gun. He surprises her with a punch to the face and a rear naked choke with her dying moments before his new girl shows up.

After a fancy dinner, Ethan proposes to Evans, but she tells him that she hasn’t been honest and that she’s already married. Meanwhile, outside his home, Parnell is sneaking around as her husband keeps calling over and over again. Ethan goes nuts finding this out and just as Evans tries to leave, Parnell calls out that he’s found a body. Ethan knocks her out and when Parnell goes to look for her, he knocks him out as well, dumping their bodies in his car.

By the end, Ethan has the cops tied up, then obliterates his mother-in-law with a baseball bat, then brings in Aaron to learn that his wife has been cheating with both Ethan and Parnell. Ethan goes full on crazy here, even more than in the first movie. This goes full on drama, with police officers pissing their pants, knives to the legs, axes to the faces, the look out behind you trick working, gasoline and so much more. That’s an understatement.

Director and writer Joe Smith, you did it again.

Bring on A Good Man 3.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Curtis Harrington had the thread of magic running through all of his films. One of the leaders of New Queer Cinema, he also directed Queen of Blood, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, What’s the Matter with Helen?, Who Slew Auntie Roo?, the Sylvia Kristel-starring Mata Hari, tons of episodic television shows and the TV movies Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell, The Dead Don’t Die, Killer Bees, The Cat Creature and How Awful About Allan.

His links to the occult, include the study of Thelema with his close associates Kenneth Anger (he played Cesare, the somnambulist in the magician/filmmaker/author’s movie Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome), Marjorie Cameron — who is pretty much the nexus point of twentieth-century occult doings and appears in his film Night Tide — and avant-garde film pioneer Maya Deren, an initiated voodoo priestess.

Harrington was also the driving force in rediscovering the original James Whale production of The Old Dark House and — as a friend of Whale near the end of his life — advised the making of the movie Gods and Monsters.

His final film was Usher, based on a high school film he made of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He cast Nikolas and Zeena Schreck — the daughter of Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey — who financed the movie by brokering the sale of Harrington’s signed copy of Crowley’s The Book of Thoth. Perhaps even more interesting is the theory that singer Taylor Swift is a clone of Zeena. No, really.

But hey — we’re here today to discuss 1977’s Ruby, a movie that brings Piper Laurie from Carrie into a story about possession and flashbacks.

In 1935, a lowlife mobster named Nicky Rocco is betrayed and executed in the swamps as his pregnant girl Ruby (Laurie) watches. The moment he dies, she goes into labor. Fast-forward sixteen years and she’s living with a mute daughter named Leslie (Janit Baldwin, Gator Bait, Phantom of the Paradise, Born Innocent, Humongous) and running a drive-in with several ex-mobsters like Ruby’s lover Vince (Stuart Whitman!) and Jake (Western actor Fred Kohler Jr.), a wheelchair-ridden man whose eyes were once cut out.

Ruby misses her days as a lounge singer, but the present has some nasty surprises. A poltergeist begins killing people at the theater, including the projectionist and a creepy guy who runs the concession stand (Paul Kent, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Prey for the Wildcats and the founder of the Melrose Theater). Before long, our heroine — such as it is — believes that Nicky’s spirit has returned and believes that she caused his death.

Vince is visited by Dr. Keller (Roger Davis, Dark Shadows, Nashville Girl and the first husband of Jaclyn Smith), who helped him get out of jail early. He’s a clairvoyant who believes that there’s something in the drive-in, which is true, because Nicky starts speaking Ruby’s name over the speakers at the drive-in. Before long, Ruby’s daughter is speaking with the voice of her dead father and showing the wounds he endured before his death.

The producer chose to change the ending, and both Curtis Harrington and Piper Laurie refused to be involved in the re-shoot. It was allegedly shot by Stephanie Rothman (the director of The Student Nurses and the writer of Starhops). This ending, where Nicky comes back from the grave and drags Ruby into the swamp, was part of the TV commercials for the film.

Keep an eye out for Len Lesser in this — he was Uncle Leo on Seinfeld — as well as Crystin Sinclaire, who appeared in Eaten Alive and Caged Heat.

This was picked up by 21st Century after Dimension Pictures went out of business.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Directed by Krishna Shah and written by Joseph A. Walker, this has an incredible soundtrack by the band War. It’s based on Walker’s 1972 play.

Johnny Williams (James Earl Jones) is a house painter and poet who has raised his family in Watts. His son Jeff (Glynn Turman) is home after failing out of the U.S. Air Force flight school and his wife wife Mattie (Cicely Tyson) is dying, but Johnny tries to remain positive. Yet when Jeff kills a rival gang member and a police officer gets killed, there’s a standoff with the cops that doesn’t end well for anyone.

The cast also includes Roger E. Mosley as Big Moe Hayes and Louis Gossett Jr. as Dr. Dudley Stanton.

This is shot in an all over the place style, sometimes in striking POV shots, other times in your face African masks dominating the entire shot. There seems to be so much crammed into this movie — Vietnam, alcoholism, racism, dealing with loss, Afrocentrism, the militarism of the Black Panthers — that it doesn’t have a solid focus, but these are the kinds of movies that had to be made and stories that had to be told.

Originally released in 1976, this was picked up by 21st Century.

You can watch this on Tubi.

This is a movie whose writer, Dardano Sacchetti, said came from a director who “nurtures a profound sadism towards women.” The New York Ripper isn’t an easy watch. In fact, a UK censor claimed was “simply the most damaging film I have ever seen in my whole life.” For all the times I wonder why some reviewers feel the need to list the trigger warnings in a film, I can admit that the entirety of this movie is basically one big trigger.

It’s also a movie that came out at the end of the slasher fad in the U.S., at a time when mainstream critics were finally confronting films that had been playing grindhouses and drive-ins for years. It barely played the U.S. in 1984 before being released in censored form on VHS in 1987. It still hasn’t been released uncut in England.

I have a slightly different view of the film than most. In a world where people obsessively watch Law and Order at all hours of the day and night, The New York Ripper offers a very similar story with one glaring difference: there is no center of morality. There’s not a single redeeming character, save perhaps Fay Majors and Susy Bunch. There isn’t a sympathetic killer nor a beaten down cop with a hidden heart of gold. This is New York City standing on the brink of Armageddon at the end of the 20th century. There isn’t room for goodness, just a struggle to survive.

Beyond Fulci unleashing every evil impulse he has when it comes to gore and destroying human bodies, the real part of this film that makes it so hard to swallow is the overwhelming feeling of misery that imbues every frame. No one is getting out alive or unscathed. Cops choose their own careers over the prostitutes that they may or may not be able to admit that they love. The very same cop, whose morality is very much in question, rails against the open marriage that is the closest thing to romantic love in the film. And the movie ends with a dying child in a hospital bed repeatedly calling out to a father who now cannot answer her. There’s grim and then there’s this film.

However, I feel that it’s an important part of Lucio Fulci’s career. It’s nearly a bookend with another of his giallo works, Don’t Torture a Duckling. Unlike his giallo contemporaries like Argento and Martino, Fulci has no concern with fashion or hyper colors. Instead, he uses the framework of the genre — hidden killers, red herrings, psychosexual motive — to rail against the inhumanity of morality and religion, while at the same time fascinatingly being as immoral as it gets.

After this film, Fulci would create Conquest, a baffling fog-entrenched take on the sword and sorcery film that I absolutely adore, and Warriors of the Year 2072, which is the final film he’d work with Sacchetti on. It’s the beginning of a downward slide in quality and health for the Godfather of Gore, although I like some of his later period films more than others, such as Murder Rock, Aenigma and The Devil’s Honey.

The New York Ripper is the hardest, roughest, bloodiest and sleaziest of Lucio Fulci’s films. That’s saying a lot. It has a lot to live up to, with the horrors that had come before. If you backed off of the gore and roughness of the film, you’d be left with a somewhat decent detective film. But what got made…

It’s like Fulci watched William Lustig’s Maniac and said, “This movie is for pussies.”

Literally, the photo below is the very least of what happens:

Seriously, as upset as people get by some movies these days, I’d like to warn anyone easily upset to avoid this movie at all costs. Some see it as Fulci’s rock bottom, reaching out to the lowest common denominator. But once his violence is removed from the fantastic, it seems much more horrifying. It’s also a film where all of Fulci’s tics — especially injuries to the eye — are not held back. In fact, fucking nothing is held back by this film. It’s brutal. This isn’t a warning like at a fun house or sideshow, hyping up what is to come inside with overblown carny barker snake oil. This is legitimately a brutish, punishing film.

An old man complaining about his balls hurting is walking his dog, who finds a rotting human hand that once belonged to a prostitute. Fulci predates Law and Order with this beginning, which is how every episode starts. Police detective Lieutenant Fred Williams is on the case, but he’s been beaten down by New York City. This isn’t the NYC of today, this is 1982 end of the world cesspool that Fulci would travel to as a tourist. This is a bleak, nihilistic world with people that are either taking advantage of one another, being taken advantage of or so cold that they have shut off all humanity.

As Lt. Williams investigates, he learns that the first victim had set up a meeting with a john who used a Donald Duck voice. Yep — this is the first hint that you are watching Fulci at his most insane. It’s either going to freak you out, draw you in or shut off the movie because it’s too strange. Me? I’m in.

A young woman rides her bike through the city. She’s tough. She’s spunky. She gives it right back to guys who come at her with sexual misogyny, particularly a man who nearly hits her with his car. She notices his car on the ferry and scratches up his car. As she commits her vandalism, a man walks up to her. She tries to speak to him, but his duck voice stops her, as well as his knife. She’s brutally slashed open and this being Fulci, the gore is not off camera. It’s as in your face as possible.

Cut to the morgue, where a pathologist tries to link this killing to the body that started the film and another murder in Harlem. Lt. Williams informs the press that a serial killer is at work, which upsets the chief of police (Fulci) and starts phone calls from the Ripper. Realizing he needs help, the cop turns to Dr. Paul Davis (Paolo Marco, The House by the Cemetery), a psychotherapy professor who wants to help him create a profile for the killer.

Meanwhile, Jane Lodge (Alexandra Delli Colli, Doctor Butcher M.D.) attends a live sex show along with her tape recorder. She’s much better dressed than anyone else in the theater and is obviously out of place.

The dangerous looking man with two missing fingers is not out of place, however.

Meanwhile (I feel like with all of the detours that this movie takes, I’ll overuse this word), the female performer (Zora Kerova, who was infamously hung by her breasts in Cannibal Ferox, as well as Anthropophagus and The New Barbarians) we just watched on stage is decimated by the Ripper, who has a broken glass bottle as his weapon. Kerova did interviews afterward where she claimed that Fulci didn’t hate women and was really warm to her, but that’s nearly impossible to conceive upon watching this scene.

Lt. Williams goes to see his girlfriend Kitty — or at the very least, his favorite prostitute — where he gets a duck-voiced call from the Ripper.

Remember Jane? Well, she has an open marriage with Dr. Lodge, who likes to listen to the recordings she makes. She goes to a rough bar where two men taunt her. One uses his foot on her — yep, exactly what I just wrote — and exposes her to the entire bar before she runs away.

Finally, we meet our heroine. Fay Majors rides home alone on the subway when she notices the man missing two fingers. She runs into a dark alley where the quacking Ripper attacks her by stabbing her in the leg and slashing at her. She escapes into an apartment building and locks the door before passing out. She has a vision of watching cartoons in a movie theater as her boyfriend, Peter Bunch (Andrea Occhipinti, Ilias from Conquest), arrives and slashes her throat with a straight razor. She awakens in the hospital, where Lt. Williams and Dr. Davis determine that the killer is left-handed and has to be the man missing two fingers.

Remember Jane? Well, she gets picked up by the man with two missing fingers for some rough bondage, which includes him beating her and making whispered phone calls to other people, but she’s also pretty insane, so it’s left to your own judgment as to whether she wants this treatment or not (positive depictions of BDSM relationships, of which this is not one, are rarely presented in any cinema, much less grindhouse films). Post-sex, as the two sleep next to one another, she hears a radio DJ ask the Ripper, the man missing two fingers, to leave those ladies alone. It sounds so much like the DJ from The Warriors that it can’t be an accident (Fulci would use a similar narrative device in Zombi 3). This is the best scene in the film, as Jane has to untie herself without waking up the man who, worst case, is the killer and best case, is a maniac, next to her. There’s a ton of suspense here. As she finally makes her way into the hallway and gets away, she walks right into the Ripper, who stabs her to death.

Lt. Williams listens to Dr. Lodge defend his open marriage as they tell him that his wife is dead. Williams takes the man to task, as obviously the recordings she made were for him, possibly against her will. The police determine that the killer is Mickey Scellenda, who has an apartment filled with porn, drugs and photos of most of the Ripper’s victims. But Dr. Davis has his doubts, as the Ripper is intelligent and Mickey isn’t.

Also, there’s a long scene of Davis buying male pornography here, revealing that he’s a repressed homosexual. He goes to ask more questions of Peter and Fay, which keeps him suspicious. After he leaves and Peter goes out, Mickey attacks Fay. Peter returns just in time to save her.

Lt. Williams then gets a call where the Ripper dedicates a kill to him. The police set up a trace and Williams keeps him on the phone until they find the telephone booth where they think the killer is, but it’s just a walkie talkie. The killer is really at the home of William’s favorite prostitute, Kitty, and taking his time killing her. This is where Fulci gives in to his worst impulses and has a long, gory razorblade sequence. If his previous eye injury gore has ever upset you, well, you shouldn’t even be watching this film. This is the hard part of watching Fulci. So much of this is indefensible sleaze, but so much of it is also well done, as Williams fighting to get to the crime scene and save Kitty, with traffic getting in the way and even his body giving out are powerful. I’m not sure how many people will get past the grimy murder scene to appreciate it, though.

Days later, Mickey’s body is found. He’s killed himself by what looks like self-suffocation. That said, the coroner thinks that Mickey has been dead for eight days, which means that he can’t be Kitty’s killer. Dr. Davis explains that this fits into his theory — the Ripper hates women and is an incredibly intelligent man who has used Mickey to keep the police off his trail.

Fay visits a hospital where Peter’s daughter from his previous marriage, Suzy, is dealing with a rare bone disorder that has led to her losing her left arm and right leg. Williams and Davis later visit the girl and notice her nurse reading Donald Duck stories to her, which leads to them racing to Peter and Fay’s place to arrest both of them.

At their house, Fay has disappeared after a call from the Ripper. Peter leaves dinner only for her to attempt to stab him, which makes you think that she is the killer. However, he rises and begins quacking, throwing her down the stairs. He grabs the knife and just as he is about to kill her, Williams arrives and shoots him in the face — another incredibly graphic scene that shocked me.

As Fay is taken away by an ambulance, Williams explains that her boyfriend hated sexually active women because his daughter would never get to enjoy the chance to live life.

The film ends with Suzy calling for her father, begging for him, as her voice is covered by the traffic of New York City.

Again, imagine Law and Order filled with beyond graphic gore, sex scenes and a lack of any heroes and you’ll have something close to The New York Ripper. Except that it’s so rough, it’s going to take a strong stomach to get through it. There have been people upset with mother! earlier this year, as it feels like a movie that attacks the audience. This film does less of that. But as upset as people get about things today, this is a hard movie for me to tell others to watch. It’s a giallo, sure. But where so many of those films are satisfied with the flash of the blade and the suggestion of gore and sex, Fulci wallows in it.

This isn’t a movie for everyone. It’s maximum Fulci without the benefit of the supernatural to dull the edges of the sadism on display. Yet it’s a well-made film that keeps you guessing and takes you on a near mondo tour through the uncertain haze of the death throes of New York City before Times Square was reinvented as a tourist-friendly paradise. For lovers of extreme cinema and Italian exploitation, there’s plenty to quack about here.

This film was briefly played in grindhouses by 21st Century. Most in America wouldn’t see it until it was released on video in 1987 and wouldn’t see it uncensored for decades to come.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

If you’re going to get into Cüneyt Arkin and you worry, “Will my fragile sensibilities be able to handle sub-VHS prints and an absolute lack of English and therefore no safety net for the absolute phantasmagorical leap into madness that I’m about to take,” permit The Sword and the Claw — or Lionman — to be your gateway drug.

King Suleiman may have conquered the Christians, but he’s a kind man who has spared the women and children. This pleases Princess Maria, who of course gives him a one night all expenses paid guided tour of her spoils of war before Commander Antoine (Yildirim Gencer, who is in Thirsty for Love, Sex and Murder) blackmails her into becoming his wife, then kills the King, but not before Suleiman wipes out nearly hundreds of people. Antoine cuts the hands off of his enemy and then hunts down the King’s wife, who gives birth all by herself in the woods, and servant Rhestim, who promptly loses the baby to some lions.

Antoine rules the land along with his son Altar (Cemil Sahbaz, who was Captain Kirk in Turist Ömer Uzay Yolu’nda, the Turkish take on Roddenberry’s space Western), placing his wife into the dungeon to die. Anyone who can’t pay taxes is crucified and killed, in that order, while Rhestim and his daughters have been starting an army. And the son of the King? Well, he was raised by lions to become a 38-year-old Cüneyt Arkin, a maniac ready to trampoline jump and claw his way into your face, if not your heart.

Of course, one of Rhestim’s daughters wants to get in with the rich and powerful, revealing that the Lionman and the King’s son have the same birthmark, one that can only come from the long-dead king. She narcs on her own sister and when our hero saves her, nearly losing his hands to acid.

This would end the fighting of almost any hero. This isn’t any hero. Now that he gets metallic lion claws, he’s ready to kill everyone — and seriously, I mean everyone and then some — to get his revenge.

Imagine, if you will, that this is the most restrained Cüneyt Arkin movie I’ve seen. Like I said, you should take your first steps into this world slowly. Do not dive headfirst into a shallow pool filled with only whiskey like I did. Take small sips, my friend, before you gulp deeply on films where hundreds of ninjas drive cars through brick walls for no reason at all.

The Sword and the Claw is the kind of movie that I could only dream of as a teenager, hopped up on Lemonheads and too many games of Bad Dudes, wishing of a film where people bounce off the walls and kill with aplomb. It feels like the kind of sub-Conan comic book, something even crazier than Warlord or Kull or even Claw the Unconquered.

Thanks to Temple of Schlock, I can tell you that William Mishkin Motion Pictures released this as Lion Man, Lion Man vs. the Barbarians and The Sword and the Claw. 21st Century also distributed it.

You can watch this on Tubi. Please do.