Don't Torture a Duckling

Movie / Show Details

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The oddly titled Don’t Torture a Duckling (taken from a minor plot point) is one of director Lucio Fulci’s most linear and conventional narratives, relying more on story and mystery than on gore and atmospherics. In a rural Italian village, young boys turn up dead, and the authorities are stumped as to who the murderer is. A reporter lends his efforts to the hunt for the killer, many red herrings turn up, and more kids are murdered while the police search for the culprit. A sexually liberated young woman from Milan, a local witch, and the village idiot all fall under suspicion until the killer is uncovered. Gone is much of the director’s trademark visual style, replaced with the blinding sunlight of an Italian summer for a hyperrealistic feel (though Fulci’s affinity for the zoom shot and deep focus comes through). More tellingly, though, Fulci points toward the superstition and ignorance of the villagers as being as dangerous and destructive as the murderer himself. Also, the film’s vehemently anti-Catholic sentiment had to have been controversial at the time of its release. Fans of the giallo and Italian horror in general would do well to seek out this film for an example of Lucio Fulci at his most grim and serious. –Jerry Renshaw