Title: The New York Ripper
Director: Lucio Fulci
Writer: Lucio Fulci , Gianfranco Clerici
Stars: Jack Hedley, Almanta Suska, Howard Ross
Tagline: New York City: It’s a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to die there!

My Rating:

Give it a watch especially if you have nothing better to do. Find the rating key here.

**********************************************************************************************************

Who you’ll see:

Lt. Fred Williams: Burnt out NYPD Detective. He likes being with a prostitute.
Fay Majors: Attacked by the ripper. Peter’s girl. Horny for him but he rejects her constantly.
Mickey Scellenda: Missing fingers on his right hand. Likes kinky sex. Thought to be the killer.
Mrs. Weissburger: First victim’s landlady. Talks a lot and likes to listen to phone calls.
Chief of Police: Lucio Fulci!
Kitty: Prostitute who Lt. Williams frequents. Gets gutted by the ripper.
Dr. Paul Davis: Likes chess. Appears to be amused by everything.
Peter Bunch: Faye’s boyfriend. Gets blasted in the face by Lt. Williams.
Dr. Lodge: Likes to listen to audio recordings of live sex shows his wife attends.
Jane Forrester Lodge: Married to Dr. Lodge. She likes live sex shows and going to seedy motels with strange men. Eventually gets killed.

**********************************************************************************************************

Things you need to see:

The opening credit rolls over dog with hand in its mouth.
Dead boobs 11:47
More boobs 19:00
Bottle to the crotch! 24:00
More boobs 25:00
Even more boobs. 49:00
Bloody boobs 53:30
Yes even more boobs. 1:13:00
Right through the eyeball! 1:16:00
Right to the face! 1:28:02

**********************************************************************************************************

What to listen for:

“Morales has silver toes.”
“Eleven people are murdered here a day and over half are women Mrs. Weissburger, goodbye.”
“Don’t worry I’ll watch the property and if anybody comes I’ll bark.”

**********************************************************************************************************

What The New York Ripper taught us:

When given a choice dogs will always choose to bring back a human hand over the stick you threw.
80’s New Yorkers hate women.
Being taunted by a serial killer is 100x worse when they talk like a duck.
It’s always best to bring your fancy Porsche when going to hang out at seedy places.
When running from someone you’re afraid of it’s always best to only slightly jog.
Letting strange men tie you to the bed in a shady motel is apparently a bad idea.
One should always use the hand missing fingers to do things.
Best way to learn about your boyfriend’s secret kid is right before being attacked by a killer so as to make it not seem so bad.

**********************************************************************************************************

What the hell is happening:

The film opens disturbingly enough with what amounts to an old man playing fetch with his dog and the body of a dead prostitute. This body turns out to be the first victim of Serial Killer. The police detective assigned to finding the psycho is Lt. Fred Williams (Jack Hedley), and he’s taking orders from Lucio Fulci himself. Fans of the director will enjoy his comical albeit brief appearance. The police get insight into the mind of serial killers from Dr. Paul Davis (Paolo Malco). Davis is a college psychology professor who just might be as creepy as the Killer himself. A killer that is running around the city “ripping” women left and right calls the police with updates and taunts. Did I mention he does this in a creepy Donald Duck voice? It doesn’t take long for the victims to start piling up. First is Cinzia De Ponti playing a young, beautiful girl taking the ferry and then, Eva (Zora Kerova), a live sex theater performer who gets hers by way of a broken bottle to the crotch.

From there we meet Fay Majors (Almanta Suska), who is taking the subway home. The only other passenger on the subway is Mickey Scallenda (Howard Ross), the same man that was in the audience at the XXX Theater when the last killing took place. He begins to move closer to her. It’s about now we are given a glimpse of that fact he is missing two fingers. She manages to escape into a theatre before he can do anything to her. She isn’t safe for long when the duck killer strikes. We see the killer’s face, and then she wakes up in the hospital.

Suddenly we see “the ripper” as he calmly walks through the hospital toward her room. It turns out to be her boyfriend Peter (Andrea Occhipinti), and it leaves the audience wondering what is real and what is not. The ante is upped by the duck sounding killer by making things personal between him and the detective after him. Hedley isn’t free from sin and he indulges himself with excessive drinking and patronizing prostitutes.

The New York Ripper is an atmospheric slasher. It pulls from the Italian giallo/slasher genre as their popularity began to fade. NYR has decent twists, turns and red herrings. The film attempts to play tricks on you, but ultimately you will probably easily figure out who is the killer. The main attractions in this film are the brutal, gory attack scenes and the more sexually explicit scenes.

Ripper, like all of Lucio Fulci’s films, is over the top with their sex and especially their gore. The gory scenes generally are tinted by the absurd situations they take place in. With NYR, Fulci takes a grittier, more realistic approach to the brutality. This is really evident in a razor blade killing where we essentially see every cut and slash. When it comes to dialogue, it really isn’t the greatest you’ll come across and the dubbing is pretty bad. If you go into it with the right mindset, you can enjoy the flick. Grab some friends and some drinks and immerse yourself in one of the master of cheese and gore’s entertaining bad movie. The ride Fulci takes you on is a fun albeit messy one.

Plus try to think of it from the killer’s perspective you try your best to be creative and fun, but all anyone wants to do is kill you. Where’s the justification in that? I mean you’re an artist after all. That is why we here at the Brigade started ‘What a way to die.’ This week’s What a Way to Die is brought to you by Battle Royale.

Last night the brigade went to see Battle Royale on the big screen. It must suck to be put in a fight to the death against your classmates (depending on your classmates I guess.) One minute on you are on your way to your class field trip. The next you wake up and you’re told you’ll be fighting to the death on a remote island.

Then you run into the girl you’ve told everyone you’ve slept with. What is the best thing to do when this happens? See if she really wants to have sex with you. When that doesn’t work? Why, threaten to rape her of course. If you DO all of this and then shoot her (sure sure accidentally) you should probably make the shot count. That is unless you enjoy being stabbed in the crotch.

For What a way to die Wednesday we present to you the death of Boy #16 Kazushi Niida.

Death by threatening to rape/accidentally shooting girl with arrow/being stabbed in crotch:

Back story: The Headless Horseman has returned! He’s out for more heads and especially those of some distant descendants of his old for Ichabod Crane.

Occupation: Headless Horseman
Appearance(s): 1
General target: Anyone he runs into and/or someone related to Ichabod Crane.
Kills: 5+
Outfit: All black, pumpkin head, horse.
Weapons: Sword.

Plus try to think of it from the killer’s perspective you try your best to be creative and fun, but all anyone wants to do is kill you. Where’s the justification in that? I mean you’re an artist after all. That is why we here at the Brigade started ‘What a way to die.’ This week’s What a Way to Die is brought to you by the Godfather of gore Lucio Fulci.

Last Sunday the brigade went to see Fulci’s The House by the Cemetery. During the “previews” we saw the preview of The New York Ripper. That is what we present here to you. Why? One it is awesome and two it has a spectacular death in it. What way would suck for anyone? I’d have to say death by broken bottle to the crotch ranks pretty high. A poor young lady will let you see what that is like at about the 2:00 minute mark.

*This won’t be safe for work or kids probably. There are boobs, sex stuff and etc.

Title: Santa Claus conquers the Martians
Director: Nicholas Webster
Writer: Paul L. Jacobson, Glenville Mareth
Stars: John Call, Leonard Hicks, Vincent Beck and Pia Zadora
Tagline: Santa brings Christmas fun to Mars!

My Rating:

Give it a watch if you have nothing better to do. Ratings key is here.

Santa Claus can’t conquer the spoilers that are below.

**********************************************************************************************************

Who you’ll see:

Betty and Billy: Abducted by Martians to help kidnap Santa.
Santa: The jolly fat man himself.
Kimar – Leader of the Martians.
Dropo: Bumbling assistant who can’t stop laughing.
Bomar: Martian child, sad sack.
Girmar : Martian child. Sad sack and amazingly Pia Zadora!
Momar – Kimar’s wife.
Torg – An unstoppable robot that Santa turns into a toy.
Chochem – 800 year old Martian. He likes smoke.
Voldar – Evil Martian. Likes: Destroying cities and moustaches. Dislikes: Children being happy, old people and pretty much everything.

**********************************************************************************************************

Things you need to see:

Is that Saturn in the background? 13:00
That really came out like a community fart. 16:40
There are spaceships we better scramble some B-52’s: 19:00
Always best to give your prisoners a tour of your ship: 25:00
“Polar bear” 33:00
Torg the unstoppable! 35:00
They sure move a lot for being statues. 37:00
He threatens and then runs off and they don’t seem worried at all. 44:00
Voldar’s face says it all. 50:00
When did this become a Three Stooges movie? 1:03:00
Thank you captain obvious. 1:05:00
Santa laughs in the face of danger. 1:14:00

**********************************************************************************************************

What to listen for:

“It is the middle of Septober.”
”And Mrs. Santa Claus has positively identified the kidnappers as Martians.”
“But we are going to forget about the testing and go after those Martian monkeys.”
“We need a Santa Claus on Mars.”
“I’m not tired but my finger is.”
“Earth has had Santa for too long.”
“Nobody on earth will know Martians kidnapped Santa Claus.”
“You won’t get away with this you…you MARTIAN.”

**********************************************************************************************************

What Santa Claus conquers the Martians taught us:

Snow doesn’t melt.
Santa long ago lost his mind.
Tender loving care doesn’t exist on Mars.
On mars you can still have hamburgers, mashed potatoes and buttered asparagus.
It’s okay to use “sleep spray” on your children.
When someone is really against a space mission it is best to bring him with you.
Radar is best used in a box.
Paper towel tubes can be used for radar.
Best way to prove you mean no harm is to stick death rays in their face.
Snow doesn’t stick to Martians.
Santa Claus always wears the same clothes.
It is best to have a duct in an airlock.
Santa always wanted to visit mars.
Santa is the worst standup comedian ever.
The Christmas spirit will get you killed.
Martian prison cells look exactly like Earth ones.
It’s always nice to share a big chuckle with your captors.
Martians are humans’ dirtier cousins.
Nuclear curtains are safe.

**********************************************************************************************************

What the hell is going on:

Kimar the leader of Mars and his wife Momar are troubled. It seems their children are a couple of sad sacks. The kids have no appetite for food pills or even sleeping. It’s gotten so bad that Kimar has to use the “sleeping spray” to put his kids to bed. Wait what? This is the case with children all over Mars. Kimar calls the Martian leadership council together for a meeting with the 800 year old Chochem. Voldar ever the heel complains the whole time. Chochem tells them that what they need is their own Santa Claus. Actually he says they need THE Santa Claus. Despite Voldar’s protest (this will become a theme) they form a raiding party to kidnap Santa Claus.

Once on earth they are confused to see there is more than one Santa Claus. The Martians venture out and stumble across Betty and Billy as the pair lounges about. The two earth children school them on Santa Claus. How are Billy and Betty repaid for their information? They are kidnapped of course. Dropo (who snuck on board) decides to give the children a tour of the space ship. He has them hide in the ships radar box and here they over hear the plan to kidnap Santa. The children escape into the cold of the North Pole. The Martians discover they’ve escaped and go off to find them. They release Torg an unstoppable robot in search of them. The children are soon attacked by a man dressed as a polar bear, err I mean a Polar bear. Eventually Torg captures them and Voldar orders him to crush them. This is stopped by Kimar and after some more bickering they all head off to find Santa’s workshop. How the children didn’t freeze to death is beyond me.

Santa’s workshop is apparently easy to find (just look for the big sign). Kimar sends in the unstoppable Torg to capture Santa, but Santa turns the robot into a giant toy. The raiding party bursts in and uses their freeze rays on the elves. Santa is taken off but not before Mrs. Claus, who is a complete nag, is also frozen still. Santa spends the ride back to Mars cracking bad joke after bad joke. He doesn’t even seem to mind that Voldar tried to shoot them out the airlock. Here Voldar and Kimar come to blows and Voldar is taken prisoner. When they return to the planet Voldar escapes and Santa is put to work making toys for the Martian children. They build him a workshop and a machine that will make the toys; all he has to do is push a button.

Voldar has been hiding out in a cave bidding his time with a couple other turn coats. The trio breaks into the workshop and sabotages the toy machine. This causes chaos when dolls come out with bear heads and vice versa. Meanwhile Dropo, who dressed up in Santa’s extra outfit, has been captured by the bad guys. They somehow don’t recognize that he is in fact a Martian. Bolstered by thinking they have jolly St. Nick Voldar marches to the workshop. Here he is captured by Voldar but manages to escape once again. He plans to kill the real Santa but Santa hatches a plan with the children. It involves attacking the ray gun wielding Voldar with toys and bubbles. This somehow works and soon they realize they must send Santa and the children back to earth.

Plus try to think of it from the killer’s perspective you try your best to be creative and fun, but all anyone wants to do is kill you. Where’s the justification in that? I mean you’re an artist after all. That is why we here at the Brigade started ‘What a way to die.’ This week’s What a Way to Die is brought to you by the movie Santa’s Slay.

The Holidays can really suck. I mean you’re stuck with family you (possibly) don’t like. The next time you’re ready to fight at the table be grateful you’re not about to be killed by Santa. What could be worse than being killed by Santa? Well, it could be former wrestler Bill Goldberg playing Santa that kills you. There are so many perfect kills to choose from in Santa’s Slay. I decided to go against one specific one and go with the generic death by Santa. In this scene Santa will destroy an entire family and in some pretty creative ways.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas from the B movie Brigade!

Plus try to think of it from the killer’s perspective you try your best to be creative and fun, but all anyone wants to do is kill you. Where’s the justification in that? I mean you’re an artist after all. That is why we here at the Brigade started ‘What a way to die.’ This week’s What a Way to Die is brought to you by the movie Jack Frost.

Not all snowmen are friendly. This clip may have you think twice before getting to buddy buddy with Frosty the next time he shows up. Let’s face it the only thing that could make the holidays worse is dying. It would really suck being killed by an evil snowman but being raped by an evil snowman in your tub would REALLY suck.

Back story: As a young boy Chris Vail saw his mother murdered and was wrongfully accused of it. The murder scarred him emotionally (and thanks to a busted steam pipe physically.) After 10 years of abuse in an Insane Asylum he murders two guards and escapes. Desperate to find the truth he returns to his former home to search for clues. A bunch of horny teens are throwing a party and he decides they should probably die.

Occupation: Insane person, burn victim, clue seeker, killer
Appearance(s): 1
General target: Anyone who gets in his way of finding out who killed his mother.
Kills: 5+
Outfit: Executioner costume, and at one point a paper plate mask.
Weapons: Knife, axe

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

Back story: General Remora tired of seeing much needed money going to libraries and schools instead of the military he took matters into his own hands. The only way to ensure proper funding was by attacking the country he loves, he’s a patriot like that. This cigar smoking General did the only thing he could do, put a bomb in a shark’s mouth, and send it to San Fran.

Occupation: Military leader, Cigar Smoker
Appearance(s): 1
General target: Anyone who gets in the way of military funding.
Kills: 5 (by the sharks he released.) 6 if you include himself. And 6 sharks.
Outfit: Military garb.
Weapons: Gun and sharks.

Back story: World War III has wreaked devastation on the earth and all of mankind. As the fighting continued to escalate a biochemical weapon was unleashed turning the lifeless corpses into unrelenting zombies. A military team was sent into to a dangerous zone and never returned. The Colonel and his men are turned into zombies. His new mission is to eat brains, well that and rule the rest of the world. The Colonel is calculated and eager for revenge. He may be a zombie but he’s not a barbarian.

Occupation: Military leader, zombie
Appearance(s): 1
General target: Humans
Kills: Many.
Outfit: Military garb and decaying skin.
Weapons: Teeth, bows/arrows and his army of zombies.

*This movie is VERY bad.