‎Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) directed by Lucio Fulci • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Don't Torture a Duckling

1972 ‘Non si sevizia un paperino’ Directed by Lucio Fulci

A reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings in a remote southern Italian town that's rife with superstition and distrust of outsiders.

Florinda Bolkan Barbara Bouchet Tomás Milián Irene Papas Marc Porel Georges Wilson Antonello Campodifiori Ugo D'Alessio Virgilio Gazzolo Vito Passeri Rosalia Maggio Andrea Aureli Franco Balducci John Bartha Duilio Cruciani Linda Sini

105 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Sean Baker 6

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Yes.... ashamed that I'm just now seeing this. But glad I waited because the Arrow Video 2-Disc Special Edition Blu-ray is quite lovely.

- New audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films
- The Blood of Innocents, a new video discussion with Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film
- Every (Wo)man Their Own Hell, a new video essay by critic Kat Ellinger
- Interviews with co-writer/director Lucio Fulci, actor Florinda Bolkan, cinematographer Sergio D Offizi, assistant editor Bruno Micheli and assistant makeup artist Maurizio Trani

The scene in which the vigilantes beat Florinda Bolkan to death (while pop music is playing…
Review by claire diane ★★★★ 15

tenebrean White City haunted by black figures & the grey Cyclopean Towers of the hi-way & everything wiped over in bleached pales, like the landscape is a dirge & requiem for all the women burnt & slashed in the graveyards & all the mad who have no place but to wander those lonely green pales.

& the old Phantom: here the Patriarch who Knows What's Best For You & will make you conform to the shape of His Hand.

& fulci's shaking vitriol at the anti-human & anti-life church (note the cowled & looming dead in the dark of prayer) :::

there is sympathy, on some level, for witches & "loose" (free) women ::: made here the left hand that is the flesh to the right hand of the black glove,…
Review by Hollie Horror ★★★★★ 4

[a woman’s voice emotionally singing over images of tragic & brutal violence]

🎶🎵 “...el stupido...” 🎵🎶

Throw me over a cliff & call it a day, I’m stupido for Lucio.
Review by Daniel Rodriguez ★★★★½ 17

In the past few months, Lucio Fulci has grown to become my favorite director. Yet, I am always a little worried about recommending his movies to anyone who isn't the slightest bit interested in horror or unconventional film. Usually what I like the most about his film are how it subverts western values, the insane onscreen violence, the satirical tone or the impending doom surrounding his characters, and these aren't exactly things that would please everyone. But then there is Don't Torture a Duckling, a movie I never gave a rat’s ass about because of this seemly idiotic title and the awful poster. I should have known better...

Don't Torture a Duckling is Fulci's least trippy work, out of the…
Review by Tony the Terror😼 ★★★★½ 3

Another excellent giallo from Lucio Fulci from before his gore-fest days!

This one is about an isolated village where young boys are being murdered and, because it’s a giallo, everybody’s a suspect and nobody’s safe. It had honestly been so long since I watched this that all I could remember was Barbara Bouchet’s swingin’ early 70’s pad and that insanity of an ending. Somehow, I had completely forgotten about all the intense and heavy themes this one deals with head on: small-town skepticism, rural conservatism, religious hypocrisy, pedophelia, witchcraft. All that’s here and yet I managed to only remember that glorious 70’s drenched house up on the hill. I have no idea what that says about me, but there you…
Review by Karelle ½ 24

... Mais par où commencer?

Par le début, disons: le film est laid. Il est visuellement laid, l'édition DVD que j'avais était laide, l'histoire est laide, l'intrigue est laidement menée, les scènes de gore sont laides, le son est laid... C'est LAID. Pas beau. Bouetteux. D'la marde. Vraiment. Pis c'était plate, en plus, genre, vraiment plate, tout le long. Il n'y avait rien pour moi icitte.

J'avais écrit une grosse affaire, mais là j'étais pas contente, au final, parce que t'sais, vous l'savez ben ce que je reproche au film si vous l'avez vu (et si non, voyez-le pas), pis rendu là, j'tannée. Mais faut quand même que je mentionne cette scène d'une violence inouïe et gratuite, où une femme…

Recent reviews

Review by Mike Taggart ★★★★

HoopTober 2018
24) Don’t Torture A Duckling

I need to watch more giallo films. It’s not super scary but I liked most of the characters and the ending was very intense. The whodunnit aspect was well done enough that you’re always one step ahead of the people in the film so you feel smart.
Review by Harrison (hairyson94) ★★★★

I don't think there's a single giallo film out there that doesn't contain at least one "holy SHIT lmao" moment, but bless Lucio Fulci for sprinkling them so frequently throughout every single film of his that I've seen so far.
Review by Jake Marlow

This one definitely gets my stamp of approval and recommendation for people who like fucked up stuff. Arrow Blu Ray was gorgeous.
Review by Jesse ★★½

I’m a Bava guy.
Review by chrislynch ★★★★

A giallo by Lucio Fulci that isn't overly gratuitous, nonsensical or hammy? As crazy as that sounds, this is it. Dark in tone and deadly serious in its execution, this is a grown up thriller with a decent central premise albeit one in which the culprit is fairly easy to guess. The enjoyment, therefore, comes not from the whodunnit but the style in which it is presented: beautiful landscapes, effective close-ups and jump cuts, and a haunting score. The kills are low-key and mostly off-screen, understandable given the victims are young boys but we do get two gore-tastic set pieces in the graveyard and the finale. To say much about about either would ruin the effect, suffice it to say that the former is brutal and effective (and no doubt had an influence on the future trend of pop songs over ultra- violence) while the latter is hysterically over the top.
Highly recommended.
Review by Bobby O))) ★★½

I think I prefer Fulci's incoherent gorefests to his incoherent gialli. I know the film is famous for that graveyard scene (and rightfully so), but that ending is no slouch either. It's too bad that much of the drama in between the violence is so limp. At least Barbara Bouchet gets plenty of screen time.
Review by Calum Iain MacIver ★★★★½

In the small Southern Italian village of Accendura, three young boys have been murdered and the village simpleton Barra (Vito Passeri) has been arrested for the crimes. In the nearby mountains, La Magiara (Florinda Bolkan) a mad witch is conducting strange black magic and voodoo rituals. In the village itself the superstitious locals are becoming restless and suspicious of Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet) a beautiful young ingénue who is in exile from Milan following a drug scandal. With the murders making national news a media circus rolls into town, including the sharp Roman journalist Andrea Martelli (Tomas Milian). Martelli befriends the sultry Patrizia and the pair make the acquaintance of the young village priest, Don Avallone (Marc Porel), who runs a…
Review by Mikey James ★★

Pretty toothless for most of its running time.
Review by Karelle ½ 24

... Mais par où commencer?

Par le début, disons: le film est laid. Il est visuellement laid, l'édition DVD que j'avais était laide, l'histoire est laide, l'intrigue est laidement menée, les scènes de gore sont laides, le son est laid... C'est LAID. Pas beau. Bouetteux. D'la marde. Vraiment. Pis c'était plate, en plus, genre, vraiment plate, tout le long. Il n'y avait rien pour moi icitte.

J'avais écrit une grosse affaire, mais là j'étais pas contente, au final, parce que t'sais, vous l'savez ben ce que je reproche au film si vous l'avez vu (et si non, voyez-le pas), pis rendu là, j'tannée. Mais faut quand même que je mentionne cette scène d'une violence inouïe et gratuite, où une femme…