10 Films That Were Too Shocking For Audiences
7. New York Ripper
No stranger to violence, Lucio Fulci had three films on the British “Video Nasties” list in the 1980s: Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979), The Beyond (1981) and The House By The Cemetery (1981). New York Ripper trumps them all - after being denied a cinema certificate by the BBFC, the print was escorted out of the country by Her Majesty’s Constabulary.
Taking place in a New York full of the adult bookstores, run down porno theaters and live sex shows, the film focuses on “a maniac who likes to slash young girls to death”, and Fulci doesn’t exactly shy away from the violence. As women are stabbed with broken bottles or tied up and slashed with razor blades, his camera records the madness in full close up.
The film was finally released – with cuts – in 2002, by which time local government (with a little help from the Disney corporation) had cleaned up The Big Apple so that it no longer resembled the city portrayed in the movie. New Yorkers were appreciative, I’m sure.