Review of Fear City (1984) by Allan C — 10 Jul 2011

If not for being directed by Abel Ferrara and written by Nicholas St. John, the team behind the excellent "King of New York", I'm not sure I would have taken much note of this film. However, knowing that there were some talented people behind the camera on this film, I did take it a bit more seriously than say the similarly themed "Vice Squad".

There is an excellent cast of character actors and also a pre-famous Tom Berringer and Melanie Griffith in lead roles. Jack Scalia however is woefully outclassesed by the talented cast around him. The story is a typically lurid Ferrara story, about a serial killer targeting strippers.

If a film being described at "lurid" sounds like a good thing to you, you'll probably enjoy this film. If "lurid" makes a film sound cheap and tawdry, then you should probably stay away from this one.

And one interesting bit of trivia, the killer is never named in the film and the actor did not receive an on-screen credit. The actor is still unknown till this day.