Fear City (1985)

Too much of everything

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Take Melanie Griffith, Rae Dawn Chong, and Maria Conchita Alonso, cast them as strippers and show them dancing topless, add a young Billie Dee Williams and Tom Berenger talking smack to each other with some stereotypical 80s-NYC lines, insert a psycho ninja slasher (played by an actor who, curiously, was never identified in the credits), and set all of this amidst slummy, early-80s Times Square (before the New 42nd Street cleaned it up). Now you've got a fun 80s-NYC classic. Don't get me wrong, this is not a good film in terms of actual quality (other than the acting, which I thought was awesome). The story is not that creative or unique, the script calls for over-dramatization at times, the soundtrack is wack, and the fight stunts are not top-notch (along those lines, Berenger, who plays an ex-boxer, punches a wall in one scene, and his wrist is positioned in an improper way that would probably result in an injury). However, the cast, the setting, and my nostalgia for 80s-inner-city movies made this film a good way to kill 96 minutes…and just because I strongly suspect that director Abel Ferrara didn't mean for this movie to be campy doesn't stop me from enjoying laughing at it.

Although FEAR CITY is provocatively titillating, and sex drenched, it really never manages to seduce. However, the film does a remarkable job of capturing the essence of early 80's tawdry 42nd St. Midtown Manhattan (Pre-Disneyfication). And, the film boasts a cavalcade of 80's talent; Tom Berenger, Billy Dee Williams, Melanie Griffith, and Rae Dawn Chong. Although director Able Ferrara was throttled by too many producers, he has still managed to craft a fairly interesting picture. What makes FEAR CITY slightly unusual is the treatment of the killer. In most films of this nature, the primary aim is to identify and demonstrate the Evil Doer's, Means, Motive, and Opportunity. However, in FEAR CITY Ferrara only shows the manifestation of the killer's violence, and nearly nothing is divulged of his character or motivation. The killer is shown as a mere cipher, and such a depiction is more in keeping with the Horror Genre rather than Detective Fiction. FEAR CITY is certainly not a great film, or even one of Able Ferrar's better efforts, but it is still worthy of a look.

It wasn't bad, just disappointing. Director Abel Ferrara pumps up this seamy and hasty thriller with genuine atmosphere of blazing violence and scorching sleaze, but Nicholas St. John's story that accompanies this ambiance is skimpily unfocused by being made-up by a collection of random murders and finally, a preposterous climax. It felt more like a drearily contrived soap-opera at times, but the twist on the vicious killer (a student of martial arts and maybe a writer to boot) was a hard one to grasp. Was there any sort of motivation, and why target certain girls. This is brought up to only become secondary; therefore it never maintains much mystery when it feels like it's actually working up to something. Some amusing moments crop up, and the humour is considerably well-judged especially surrounding actor Michael V. Gazzo.Ferrara's direction can be slick and racking, but really lacks the adrenaline boost. The sombre look and bleak setting works in passages, and the throbbing soundtrack stays abound. The cast is a dependable lot without receiving standing applause. Tom Berenger gives a hauntingly scared, but assertively low-key performance. Billy Dee Williams adds to the film's fire-belly and Jack Scalia works well along side Berenger. A young Melanie Griffith is mildly okay, emitting a sullen affection and heating it up. Also showing up is Rae Dawn Chong and Joe Santos. As for the guy who plays the killer, it remains a mystery and so does the actor. The script is filled with thick, hardboiled dialogues that grind away, but don't add anything in the way of substance.

(There are Spoilers) Very graphic film about a crazed killer Pazzo, John Foster, out to rid the city of strippers and go-go dancers who in his disturbed mind are the cause for all the ills in the world. Going out on what seems like a crusade against sin and indecency Pazzo, who's name is never mentioned in the film, ends up slicing up some dozen strippers and go-go dancers as well as hanging, off camera, sleazy drug pusher Jorge, Juan Fernandaz, before his reign of terror is finally over.Pazzo's brutal assaults has those who run the strip joints in a panic with the girls refusing to go out to work not wanting to become Pazzo's next victim. All this has strip joint owner Mike, Michael Z. Gazzo,go so far as getting overweight and middle aged hookers to entertain his by now quickly declining customers! Ex-boxer Matt Rossi, Tom Berenger, and his boyhood friend Nicky Parzeno, Jack Scalia, who run a talent agency providing girls for the city's strip joints are also getting a bit teed off with all their girls never showing up for work at the strip joints and go-go bars that their assigned to.With nobody really knowing who's committing these brutal crimes homicide police detective Al Wheeler, Billy Dee Williams, deuces that it's a gang war between the two top talent strip joint agencies run by Rossi & Parzeno and their biggest rival the agency owned by Brooklyn's Goldstein, Jan Murray. It's when one of Goldstein's girls ends up a victim of the crazed killer that it becomes apparent after Det. Wheeler almost ran the Rossi & Parzeno agency out of business that it's the work of a lone nut psycho. The movie has Matt's girlfriend Loretta, Melanie Griffith, who strip-joint owner Mike's biggest attraction end up getting back on coke, the stuff that you sniff not drink, when her lesbian lover and fellow stripper Rea Dawn Chong becomes one of Pazzo's victims. Savagely attacked Rea hangs on to life at the hospital for about a week and when she finally, and mercifully, passes away Loretta really becomes addicted on drugs where her sexy figure shrivels up to the point where she ends up looking like a holocaust survivor!Matt who's already on Det. Wheeler's sh*t-list for brutally working over a tourist, out of town architect Boeke, thinking that he's the psycho killer ends up going back to the old neighborhood, Little Italy, asking the local Godfather Carmine, Rossano Brazzi, for help in getting the killer. Carmine was about as helpful as the cops are in not having a clue who this psycho is. It's only later when Loretta goes back to her drug pusher Jorge who, unknowingly to Loretta, turned out to be Pazzo's latest victim that Matt followed her and met up with the deranged martial arts expert for the films exciting and bone crushing conclusion.Much like the movie "Taxi Driver" which it obviously copied from "Fear City" shows New York at it's most raw and grittiest. The night scenes that make up well over 75% of the film give you the feeling that the city is no place to bring up a family or take your girl out for a date. Tom Barenger as fit and in shape as he's even been, in any film that he was in, is excellent as the ex-boxer Matt Rossi. Matt had quit boxing after he killed a man in the ring. This after begging the referee, James Brewer, to please stop the fight before the final and fatal, to Matt's opponent, round.It was good to see that Matt still had it, a lighting left jab and devastated right cross, when he confronted Pazzo at the end of the movie. It was that combination, together with a few head buts,that finished the crazed killer off for good. It's was just too bad that Matt's friend Nicky Parzeno didn't fear as well ending up in the hospital with a couple of broken ribs from karate kicks he took from Pazzo earlier in the film.