Le tueur de Manhattan

Set in the seedy, grimy, rubbish-strewn streets of New York, home to pimps, strippers, hos, junkies and violent criminals, Joseph Zito's psycho thriller Bloodrage draws inspiration from Scorsese's Taxi Driver whilst sitting comfortably alongside other gritty horrors of the same era such as Maniac, The Toolbox Murders and Don't Answer The Phone.

The film sets the grim tone quickly with the grisly murder of prostitute Beverly (Judith-Marie Bergan) by young nut-job Richie (Ian Scott), who kills the woman when she threatens to tell his mother that he visited her without any money. The hooker's head goes through a window pane, her throat gashed on the broken glass. Richie mops up the mess, buries the body and hot-foots it to the big apple, where he continues to be upset by women who don't live up to his expectations. Needless to say, they don't stay alive for long. Meanwhile, cop Ryan (James Johnson) is looking for Beverly, his search leading him closer and closer to Richie.

Employing a Taxi Driver style inner monologue to let us inside the head of the misogynistic killer, this somewhat derivative study of a psychopath is helped by a convincing central performance from Scott. Richie's treatment of his victims is cold and brutal, with one victim tortured in her bath-tub before being strangled with her phone cord. Richie even goes so far as to break the neck of a neighbour's dog, before doing the same to its owner. He also likes to spend time watching the hooker in the next building as she entertains a series of 'johns'. This allows for Zito to squeeze some full frontal nudity into a film that is already full to the brim with sleaze.

It is fair to say that the plot offers nothing new to the genre, and that the pace is rather sluggish at times, but the run-time is fairly short, so boredom shouldn't be a problem. Zito would go on to make slasher Rosemary's Killer (AKA The Prowler) and Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter, and while I wouldn't say that Bloodrage is quite as good or as gory (the title is misleading: there's not a great deal of blood) as either of those, it should pass the time nicely enough for those who appreciate sordid exploitative trash from the early-'80s.

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for the final scene, in which Ryan finally gets his hands on the sicko who killed Beverly - it's hilarious!

Bloodrage is not a great film. It's also not so-bad-it's-good. It's simply watchable and decently fun. Despite the lack of gore, the film is very gritty. You can almost smell the New York bars and apartment halls. Exploitation fans should find the amount of violence that is present thrilling enough, even if it's not overly explicit. There's a ton of nudity, so that box is checked if that's your thing. Overall, Bloodrage is a good watch if you go into it knowing what you're going to get. What you get is a simple plot about a guy who kills hookers and his further descent into madness. The sparse plot is very lean and tight. The acting is pretty darn good overall with the exception of a few characters.

"Bloodrage" tells the story of Richie,a withdrawn young man with the penchant for murdering hookers.He kills Beverly,a small-town prostitute and after concealing his crime goes to New York.As his killing spree continues Richard becomes more and more fascinated with a prostitute who lives across the alley.He watches her undress through the window and we hear his innermost thoughts via voice-over monologues."Bloodrage" oozes sleaze and misogyny.The seedy atmosphere of 70's New York is well-captured with its peeling-wallpaper interiors and dirty alleys.The murder scenes are quite brutal and there is plenty of full-frontal female nudity.If you enjoyed "Maniac" or "Don't Go in the House" give this grimy slice of psycho cinema a look.7 out of 10.

A psychotic young man heads to New York after murdering a prostitute of a small town. Thinking that he has escaped the police, he tries to live a normal life, but he encounters the very sleazy life of the city and goes about fixing up the problems, like knocking more prostitutes. On his trail is a town cop who's looking for him in the hope he can find out what had happened to the first prostitute that he secretly killed off.

I'm so baffled. I went in expecting something of a horror story cross vigilante action piece like it seems to advertise. Um instead, the picture on my video case never seemed to appear in the film. Nor did the folks on it! Also the title is very misleading. With the name like Joseph Zito tagged to the project, you'll be expecting something passionately wild and out going (think of Red Scorpion, Missing in Action and Invasion U.S.A) and gruesomely unpleasant (The Prowler and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter), but what a glum character study on a insane killer that tries to be thoughtful, but it just doesn't work when it's going for this aspect. I guess he learnt later on from this effort, as this was just his second feature.

This immensely sleazy slasher is strictly average and too slow. It only goes for about 75 minutes and it still lulls about in monotonous scenes that feel like fillers. I didn't find it boring because it was oddly hypnotic. Thanks to its stone-cold approach, inspired visions and gritty locations, but it could have used a whole lot more verve in its execution. The deaths and the lead up to them are rather bloodless, but still quite misogynistic. Just wait around for the dog scene. Blood might be little, but sex and nudity (a lot of window peeping) isn't discarded. Far from it actually. The 70's New York atmosphere generated a circuit that was scummy, filthy and dreadfully corrupt. Zito filtered this into the flick superbly.

The clueless story has some unbelievable developments (a sudden conclusion) and very little structure to it, as it plays many cards like a psycho serial killer to soft porn and then a look through the damaged mind created by a forsaken society (ala Taxi Driver). Even the husky voice-overs that the film begins off with have a familiar ring to it. But in all it's basic.

Surprisingly the performances are acceptably fair. The spaced out Ian Scott plays the uptight young lad Richard in a very disquieting temperament. Legendary hard-boiled actor Lawrence Tierney is in a minor thankless role that asks very little off him. James Johnson, Rita Ebenhart and Blair Trigg chime in with some solid performances too.

Flat pacing can kill it at times, but this raw project has its moments. Not a bad early effort by Zito.

A title like "Bloodrage" is enough to catch the attention of any horror fan, the cover is also promising but the movie itself isn't that good. Ian Scott plays a violent young man that is about to snap at any moment, the event that leads to that is a encounter with a prostitute that went sour. When she asked him for money and threaten to call his mother, he lost it and unveiled his more basic violent instincts. To escape the police he moved to New York, checking in a motel. Soon he started to feel the pressure of the big city, full of things that deeply bothered him. First in that list, the prostitutes, which he'll hunt down one by one until he meets one that will give him a run for his money. Not only he has to deal with the city life but also the small town cop that came to New York trying to find the person responsible for the death of the first prostitute. Who will get to him first?

The movie's plot is simple, nothing wrong with that if it was well executed, in my opinion it wasn't. It's rather slow-paced. Only in the first murder we see any blood, not enough for a movie called "Bloodrage". The characters aren't developed enough to make them interesting, their actions don't make much sense. Ian Scott reminded me of Ted Raimi, specifically in "Skinner", they kind of look alike.