Synopsis
If he wants you.... he'll get you
A sexually frustrated young man kills hookers.
1980 Directed by Joseph Zito
A sexually frustrated young man kills hookers.
Never Pick Up a Stranger, Bloodrage, Psycho-Ripper, Psycho-Ripper - Traue niemals einem Fremden, Der Psycho-Ripper
A Review of Bloodrage (AKA Never Pick Up a Stranger)
OR
The Happy Hooker Gets Killed
"If he wants you....he will get you!"
Bloodrage (Directed by Joe Zito) is more of a character study than a slasher flick, that borrows heavily from Taxi Driver (It's almost plagiarism.)
Richard (Ian Scott) is a troubled young man who by accident kills a prostitute in his small town. After covering up the crime, he hopes to find anonymity in the crowded streets of New York.
There he kills another lady of the night because he enjoyed the sexual thrill of murder.
The film has a realistic aspect with a troubled person discovering they get a thrill out of murder.
(Lots of real-life serial…
Before Joseph Zito (aka Joseph Bigwood) hit the horror scene with movies like The Prowler and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, there was Blood Rage. A sleazy lil NYC number about a blood thirsty, sexually frustrated maniac who kills random innocents in his spare time. Hmmm, I'm sensing the start of a trend here...
But this was surprisingly a lot more nuanced than I was expecting. Only two kills of note, as the story focuses more on the depravity, the filthy squalor, the uncaring nature of life in the big city, and what makes the mind of a serial killer tick. Doesn't quite reach the sickening depths of something like Henry or Angst of course, and starts to get a bit repetitive in the last half, but the attempt was there. Hell of an ending though, and the final shot before credits roll is just... WOW!
I was interested in seeing Blood Rage because it's directed by Joseph Zito who made The Prowler and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Those are fun slasher movies with great practical gore, this one is grungy and mean-spirited with more scenes of full frontal nudity than violence. Zito is credited onscreen as Joseph Bigwood which seems fitting considering the amount of nudity in this movie.
As sleazy as it is, Blood Rage also has some great moments of unintentional humor like Lawrence Tierney as a veteran NYC detective looking shocked and saying "you mean she's a hooker?" in his grizzled voice. Or a scene where a woman brings the killer home and introduces him to her friend saying "he's…
Hoop-Tober IV: The Final Chapter #25
Basically what you have here is Big, only it's not a little boy wishing he could be big and getting big and running off to The Big City.
Instead, it's a young man who visits the local knocking-shop and murders the town's one and only prostitute because she disgusts him so much, and then runs away to The Big City.
And instead of his best friend going to visit him he's pursued by the local cop, who had a bit of a thing for the town hooker, and quit his job to try and find her because he thinks she just packed her bags and left.
And instead getting a job in for a…
One year before he directed the semi-classic slasher, The Prowler, Joe Zito wallowed in some sleazy trash with Blood Rage. And he used the name Joseph Bigwood as his screen credit. Make of that what you will. There's not much to recommend other than the incredibly grimy, depressing NYC atmosphere. The whole thing is mean spirited and trashy, but also incredibly flat and languid, making for a strange, uncomfortable experience. Somehow, Zito would immediately knock off 4 straight genre classics in a row with The Prowler, Friday The 13th Part 4, Missing In Action and Invasion USA. In light of that, Blood Rage becomes a lot more interesting.
The ending is amazing!!!
So the fact that Joseph Zito directed this in 1979 and a dog has its neck broken and is thrown through the glass and out a window makes me fairly certain that we are supposed to assume Gordon the dog was tossed out the window in Friday the 13th Part 4 by Jason. The way it’s shot in Friday 4 it always looked to me like Gordon just said “the hell with this, I’m out.” What is it with Zito and chucking dogs out windows.
This is a dirty grimy mean spirited movie with a pretty creepy killer.
And Again, the ending is FANTASTIC!!!!!
HORROCTOBER 2020 #8
VHS-TIME!
PSYCHO-RIPPER
Filmwunsch für eine Deutschsprachige DVD/Blu-ray VÖ #22
Das interessanteste an diesem sleazigen Psycho-Horror-Slasher ist in der Tat der Regisseur. Denn niemand geringeres als Joseph Zito (hier als Pseudonym Joseph Bigwood genannt) durfte hier für seine zweite Arbeit auf dem Regie-Stuhl Platz nehmen. Danach folgten für uns B-Film Junkies Hits auf Hits mit der FORKE DES TODES, FREITAG DER 13. - DAS LETZTE KAPITEL, MISSING IN ACTION, INVASION USA und RED SCORPION. Danach folgten noch zwei belanglose C-Action Gurken und schon war seine relativ kurze, aber doch intensive Karriere als Regisseur beendet.
Aber um was geht es in PSYCHO-RIPPER?
Der Klappentext der Toppic VHS verrät es uns:
Der schüchterne Richard verliebt sich in die hübsche Beverly,…
There must've been something quite special about watching a movie like this in a 42nd Street grindhouse cinema, and seeing scenes that were shot on the sidewalk outside. It would remind you that, even after the film's ended, you're not going to escape the New York City sleaze; indeed, you're going to step out of the theatre right into it. Hopefully real life will nevertheless make more sense than this crappy first horror effort from Joseph "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" Zito.
The action begins in an unnamed small town, where Richard is a young man with a penchant for murdering prostitutes, such as Beverly, whose body he dumps before fleeing to NYC. By a very convenient coincidence, Beverly…
Sexual frustration may not be a common plot element, let alone be easy to deal with, but I know one thing: it makes for a sleazy movie, which, now that I think about it, is kind of fitting. I mean, you have a serial killer who murders prostitutes like it's nobody's business; a policeman who doesn't go by the book, a strip joint, and some pretty brutal kills. How's that for a grimy slice of New York? Well, once you take a bite, you'll want more, as Blood Rage is a film in which one thing leads to another; a film in which voyeurism leads to violent confrontations. It's different in that regard, given the emphasis on carnality as well…
AKA NEVER Pick Up a Stranger!
In a small town in upstate New York, the local creep is tired of watching the town whore and decides to get a piece of the action. Things don’t work out as planned when she takes fatal fall through the window. Before the fuzz can get on his back, he packs up and hitches a ride to New York City, where he works the Yoo-hoo canning line by day and continues his voyeur career by night. Similar to something like Driller Killer, this whole movie wallows in that late 70s scuzz, and is best enjoyed by succumbing to the filth-dream.
Funny to think that most of the people watching this scumbag hiding in the scumsea anonymity of New York City were a bunch of faceless perverts in the theaters on 42nd St.
Thanks to Dangerous Encounters Fanzine for putting me on to this!
"Eine Nutte kann auch romantisch sein".
Sagt eine Nutte über sich selbst relativ am Anfang, um dann aber schnell dem nächsten Stecher die Kohle aus der Tasche zu ziehen. Romantisch ist an diesem Früh-Joseph Zito-Schmuddler nix, außer man würde das Around the 80s-New York als romantisch bezeichnen. Das sleazige New York ist aber auch das eigentliche Hauptargument für BLOOD RAGE, der hierzulande DER PSYCHO-RIPPER heißt, denn der Psycho-Ripper ist zwar ein Psycho, der Nutten killt, dies manchmal sogar in ausufernder Länge, was eine eigenartig-stupide Niedergeschlagenheit in den Film bringt, man erwarte aber keinen normalen Slasher oder sogar Gesplatter. Das hier geht eher in Richtung Psycho-Studie, bei der der Killer immer schön von den Nutten verspottet wird und deswegen killt. Ein…