Blood and guts arent what they used to be. Back in the 1980s, all you had to do to was create a video cover that a showed a screaming female, a monster and a disembodied head, and you could turn a reasonable profit on an otherwise unremarkable film. Skip forward 3 decades and not only are the video stores history, but the producers of low-budget horror movies need to be able to sell their titles through the large chains, meaning the films have to be fairly mainstream in content. You know what that means: no torn off limbs, no cannibalism and almost certainly no power tools entering a mans head above the tagline, The blood flows in rivers, and the drill keeps tearing through flesh and bone. As the title of a Rob Zombie song informs us, Everything Is Boring Now. Those of us who look back on movies like The Driller Killer with a certain affection wonder if cinema is entering a new dark age, where every film has to be neutered in order to broaden its appeal. No boobs, no explicit violence and, most criminal of all, no ketchup. If you grew up watching cannibal movies on VHS, this has all the appeal of going to see The Care Bears Movie with your little sister, so here are 15 reminders that everyone needs a little red meat in their diet.
15. New York Ripper (1982)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5U7F0NJ1RQ The New York Ripper isnt Lucio Fulcis best film, but its certainly his most notorious not only was the picture banned in the UK, the print was escorted out of the country by Her Majestys Constabulary. Set in a grimy, run-down, pre-Giuliani New York, where every other person appears to be some kind of predator, NYR wallows in its own sleaze. Theres a mad killer (who speaks with Donald Ducks voice) on the loose, but dont expect any of Fulcis usual cinematic flourishes because hes far too interested in portraying the human condition at its lowest. Mixed in with the prostitutes and live sex shows are some truly unpleasant sequences, such as when the killer ties up a young woman and tortures her with a razor blade, eventually slicing into her eyeball. Critics that accused the director of misogynistic excess may have a point.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
