Don't Torture a Duckling
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
- Release Date: September 29, 1972
- Directed by: Lucio Fulci
- Written by: Lucio Fulci, Roberto Gianviti and Gianfanco Clerici
- Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes
Don't Torture a Duckling was Lucio Fulci's third giallo film, after One On Top of the Other in 1969 and A Lizard in a Woman's Skin in 1971. I first heard it mentioned offhand in the Cinema Snob's very old episode for Don't Go Near the Park, but I didn't give it much thought for quite a while. Like many fans, I first came to know Fulci's work through films such as Zombi 2 and the Gates of Hell trilogy, which are widely known for their mass amounts of bloodshed and gore. Seeing as how giallos are known for being mainly murder mysteries with the occasional violent scene thrown in, I'm a bit ashamed to admit that it took me until I was 25 to finally check out his films in this genre. I was so wrong to ignore them for such a long time. Not only is Don't Torture a Duckling one of the best films in Fulci's career, but it's also one of the most effective giallos that I've seen!
The film is pretty infamous in the giallo genre for its subject matter and themes. While most films in the genre focus on a mysterious killer picking off mainly women one by one, in this film, the unseen killer is instead preying on 12-year-old boys. The story takes place in a rural Italian village where multiple boys have turned up strangled or drowned to death. Being a small community, the townspeople are superstitious and distrusting of the outsiders who are coming to their town to investigate this case, while at the same time being horrified that these things are happening to their children. This small, isolated setting works so well because barely anyone in this story trusts each other at all. I like how the villagers think that this monster could be one of their own as much as it could be one of the outsiders, and how the outsiders consider the villagers to be backwards and simple. Being the victims here, you want to root for the townspeople, but then there's a scene where a group of fathers beat a woman with chains simply because they suspect her to be the murderer. Part of what makes this movie such an engaging watch is the fact that these two groups keep clashing over and over again, and neither one is squeaky-clean.
Some of the characters in this movie range from the strange to the spine-chillingly uncomfortable. There's an oddball loner who likes to watch people have sex with prostitutes, and a woman who practices black magic and is seen making clay dolls and sticking needles through them. Easily the most uncomfortable character for me is Patrizia, a city woman who has moved to the village after a drug scandal. Her introductory scene is her sunbathing nude while her hosts' young son comes to bring her a beverage. She knows he is uncomfortable, and continuously teases and flirts with him to egg him on. While the movie was already pushing boundaries when it came to physical child abuse and murder, this sexual undertone makes certain scenes even more uncomfortable to watch. Nothing sexual is done or shown, but the idea is enough to make your skin crawl.
Unlike later giallos that relished in excessive bloodshed, this movie is more reserved and realistic with its violence. The murders often happen off-screen, and the audience only sees the after-effects of the crimes. It really only has a handful of bloody scenes. The most disturbing thing here is theme of child predation by people who are in power over them, whether it's everyday people or those in institutions. The loss of innocence is the biggest idea in the movie, and is crucial to the film's final reveal. I'm not going to spoil what that is because that would ruin the experience of watching the film, but I will just say that it got Lucio Fulci in a lot of hot water when the film was first released. It's a fantastic ending that, in a way, hits just as hard today as it did in the 1970s, and shows just how little things have changed in the past 50+ years. That alone makes the ending all the more bleak.
Don't Torture a Duckling is a top-tier giallo for me. While films like Deep Red may hit more of the stereotypical high notes that giallos are known for, this film is so much more disturbing simply for being so realistic in its portrayal of humanity. It shows how ignorance and fear can cause insanity that makes monsters out of the people we should be able to trust the most. Don't let Fulci's main reputation as a "godfather of gore" make you think that this movie has little to offer. A human monster can be so much scarier than any eye-plucking zombie could ever be.