9. The New York Ripper (1982)
By far and away the most controversial Fulci movie, and also excoriated to the highest heavens by the critics, The New York Ripper is quite a hard movie to stomach. Basically there is a Donald duck voiced killer on the loose whose favourite killing method is to kill young women by stabbing them in the crotch. Red herrings are liberally scattered along the way, as a hard boiled New York cop attempts to hunt the sick freak down. The ending is a shocker and very bleak and depressing. There is nothing of the classic, stylish and inventive Italian horror film in The New York Ripper. If you compare Fulci's classy Don't Torture a Duckling (which features a similar Donald duck voiced killer) to the New York Ripper, you would hardly believe they are from the same director. Fulci, with this film, seems to be venting some sort of bizarre hatred of women, a feeling that we are all a bunch of tarts just asking for it. One crotch stabbing in a film would be enough, but to endlessly repeat it? Get thee to a psychoanalyst Lucio!