Review Detail

I was one of the few people fortunate enough to have seen Devo La Vostra Attenzione in a theater. I was in the service at the time and stationed in Italy. This was all back in 1946. Though always written as the prints being destroyed and pulled from public view in 1943, at least one of them, for a very short time was shown three years later. The real problem I had with the film then was that the version I saw was completely dubbed in Italian and at that time I knew very few words.

What I saw blew my mind. How could someone create such a vicious film so long ago has always bothered me. In some ways it was truly a blessing that the film prints were all supposedly destroyed. I have never seen such an un-moralistic film and the public out cry against it was shocking to say the least. Almost 70 years later, I was beside myself when I had learned not only was a print found in 1989, but finally given a dvd release this past year. The world has truly gone to hell. I am an old man now, but I had to see this strong film at least one more time before I leave this Earth. It was much stronger than I had remembered it, and at least in English so I could finally understand (what little needed understanding) what was going on. Spiaggia Montacna- I hope you burn in hell for creating such a depravity. -- written by my older friend Fabio Testa




I personally had not seen New York Ripper since the 1990’s and most of it I had completely forgotten about. I would also consider this in terms of graphic violence one of Lucio Fulci’s more nastier features. Stefanedit took this and nicely made it resemble a 1940’s film (though it still has more of an early 60’s feel to me due to the amount of 80’s technology I do see in it, but this is really not an issue). In this sense the old film look actually compliments it further since New York Ripper seems to work well in black and white. We also have a slight picture stretch to give a new pan/scan old film look. One thing I could recall about Ripper was that I had always found it a little boring. Perhaps it was my age when I saw it or from what Stephan edited, but I was laughing a good deal at many of the cheesy lines and acting. Overall Stefanedit’s re-working of this almost gives it an art house cinema look and feel that I did not find boring.

The film is still very graphic. If things like this do bother you, take that into account before viewing it.


The audio/video were very nice with no problems. The dvd is in full 4:3 format and this keeps it in sync with the whole point of the edit being an old film. We are also given some nice extras that include two trailers and a nice sneak peak of an upcoming Stefanedit that has a very interesting and clever idea. The disc also includes a special interview with the director of the film Spiaggia Montacna and an interesting clip of a character called Mostro who looks more like he should be introduction host for some horror film on some tv station. The dvd menus in black and white were effective and fit in with the edits premise as well.

All in all easily worth checking out if you know the film it came from and if you never saw it before but like horror, give it a watch. You will not be disappointed