Product Details

• Actors: Florinda Bolkan, Barbara Bouchet, Tomas Milian, Irene Papas, Marc Porel
• Directors: Lucio Fulci
• Writers: Lucio Fulci, Gianfranco Clerici, Roberto Gianviti
• Producers: Renato Jaboni
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Blue Underground
• DVD Release Date: February 27, 2007
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000KRNG54
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,790 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Don't Torture a Duckling" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Torture A Duckling, classic Italian giallo, June 11, 2001

By 

S. Richardson "giallofan" (Shropshire, England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Don't Torture a Duckling (DVD)

Lucio Fulci's Don't Torture A Duckling is a superb little giallo. It features a haunting score, beautiful cinematography, a gripping storyline about the murder of young boys. As the body count increases so do the number of leads and red herrings. A superb little film with a great sense of atmosphere. There is a powerful scene, one of such brutality but it remains integral to the plot. Overall I'd give this film 5/5, the films transfer onto DVD is quite brilliant with hardly any problems, there were only a few hairs and scratches visible for a very short period of time. The transfer looks beautiful, you can hardly believe the film is so old. The sound was fine on the disc, the film has a great music score. The film has no extras but who cares, when a film is this good I don't give a damn about extras. Check this film out if you like good murder mysteries or are a fan of Italian giallo films. This film doesn't rely on the heavy gore techniques that Fulci would use later in his career. Instead the film concentrates on it's characters and the atmosphere. Highly Recommended.

I'd also recommend Fulci's A Lizard in a Woman's Skin.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Psychosocial Giallo, January 9, 2004

By 

Daniel Kepley (Viola, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Don't Torture a Duckling (DVD)

DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING is a rare bird in Lucio Fulci's very gilded cage of horror. Made a good seven years before his gorefests, starting with the excellent ZOMBIE, that defined his reputation here in America and the rest of the world, DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING is just as intense and brutal, if a bit less gruesome, than the typical Fulci fan is used to. Yet still in all, the story alone (co-written by Fulci) is as much a testament to Fulci's uncompromising and gutsy approach to horror and suspense as any gore scene in his later films (two scenes ended up starting off two later Fulci films). Hell, even the great Dario Argento says that this is one of Fulci's best films (it says so on the cover), and after my first viewing of DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING on New Year's Eve, I can see why; I also saw a lot of George Romeroesque social commentary in this film.
Child murders and disappearances are very galvanizing experiences for any society, especially in a town like in this movie. Everybody is desperate for answers as to who would do such a horrible thing. There have even been a few cases where some townspeople resort to vigilante behavior towards a suspect to satisfy their need for justice. Fulci handles this story in a surprisingly tasteful matter, with only two instances of violence against children; the fact that little boys are being murdered is shocking enough!
There are no likeable characters in the village, which makes the story more immediate and brutal. Even the little boys that are the targets of murder are portrayed as nasty (e.g., spying on naked people, killing animals with slingshots). The recent scandal with Michael Jackson gives more importance to the story arc involving Patrizia, whom one of the boys sees naked. The only character with any appeal is the reporter Andrea Martelli, who is covering the murders. That character is like the outsider that Argento gets you to identify with in his movies, and that plot device works wonders in this story.
The chain-whipping of a local Wiccan by three men as pop music plays from a car radio is the most psychosocially relevant scene in horror history. It speaks volumes about how far some people will go to achieve a degree of justice in the wake of horrible crimes. In this case, these men are driven by superstition since the woman claimed to have placed a spell on the boys because they were messing around her property. That entire sequence, appropiately hard to watch and grisly, tells you all about the moral decay of the entire village. Fulci also used a chain-whipping scene to kick off THE BEYOND, my favorite Fulci film, and it holds the same meaning.
*SPOILER ALERT* We all know how terrifying killers are in slasher movies, but imagine the killer being somebody who should protect you-such as a Clergyman. Just as Romero has always taken potshots at the military (e.g., THE CRAZIES, DAY OF THE DEAD), so Fulci knocks organized religion front and center here. The ultimate motivation behind the killings is a shocking one because it is so misguided. In fact, the eventual demise of the killer (reused for SEVEN NOTES IN BLACK/THE PSYCHIC) is all the more shocking when juxtaposed with some other footage. This plot point has more shock value in the wake of the scandal with the Catholic church of last year! I have never been stunned by a horror film since childhood until this one!
If DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING were to be released in theaters today, it would generate a major firestorm of controversy, especially in light of the aforementioned events in the media. Yes, this movie was definitely too strong for Europeans to stomach back in 1972 (it didn't get released elsewhere at that time) and it remains potent today. A gritty and ground-breaking giallo, Lucio Fulci's DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING is a definite must-watch!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Giallo goldmine, December 12, 2004

By 

Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Don't Torture a Duckling (DVD)

No figure in the horror film genre is as divisive as Lucio Fulci. After watching one or two of his films, viewers tend to move into one of two camps. One side hails Fulci as a master of terror, a man who upped the gore quotient in his films while creating wonderfully atmospheric pictures. For these people, Fulci is right up there with the likes of Dario Argento as one of the best filmmakers ever to emerge from Italy. The other camp sneers at these claims, pointing to the plodding pace of his films, the use of extreme gore to camouflage plot holes, and the director's inability to draw good performances out of his cast as evidence of mediocrity. Initially, I enjoyed Fulci's films, specifically "Zombie," "City of the Living Dead," and "The New York Ripper" because I did not know any better. When I came on the scene, you went to Fulci to feed your craving for gore. What a difference a few years exploring the genre makes! While I will not go so far as to remove Lucio from my play list altogether, I have seen enough of his films to realize he is not a cinematic genius. He is at best a competent director, at worst an abysmal one, and there are plenty of examples of bad filmmaking in this director's filmography. "Zombie" is without a doubt his best film, but "The House By The Cemetery" runs a close second along with "The Beyond" and "The Gates of Hell."

This giallo, however, is magnificent, as good as many of Dario Argento's efforts. "Don't Torture a Duckling," set in a small village out in the Italian sticks, follows the activities of journalist Andrea Martelli (Tomas Milian) as he attempts to ascertain the identity of a killer preying on children. The first part of the film shows us one of the crimes and introduces us to three of the potential suspects. Possible killer number one is Maciara (Florinda Bolkan), a gypsy and practitioner of black magic whose child passed away some time before. She buried her child out on a hillside only to discover that three local youths desecrated the grave. Her anger over the crime, as well as her ethnicity and the suspicions of the heavily Catholic locals, make her a prime suspect when one of these kids disappears. Possible killer number two is Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet), an extraordinarily beautiful young woman with a shady past and a penchant for long drives at night. She also engaged in questionable behavior with one of the victims immediately before he perished. Possible killer number three is the local priest, Don Alberto Avallone (Marc Popel), a strange man who is on intimate terms with all of the youngsters in town thanks to his youth programs.

As the film progresses we learn more about the odd behaviors of the three principal suspects. Maciara, it is safe to say, fails to stay a suspect for long after several men in the town beat her to death with a chain. Patrizia's background rapidly comes to light partly through police investigation and partly through Martelli's persistent inquires. It turns out that she has a history of drug abuse, never a good thing when you're a suspect in a murder investigation, and she is staying in the village because of problems she incurred in Milan. Patrizia eventually teams up with Martelli to help solve the crime, but her continued evasion of critical questions--what about her cigarette lighter at the scene of a crime, for example--keeps her at the top of the list of potential killers. This journalist better watch his back whenever Patrizia is around. As for Don Alberto, well, we soon learn quite a few things about him and his mother Dona Aurelia (Irene Papas) that make us wonder if he isn't the one behind the despicable crimes. The strength of the film, as is the case with all wonderful gialli, is that it keeps us guessing right up to the final minutes. In fact, I think "Don't Torture a Duckling" takes us up to the very last minute of the film before revealing the identity of the killer.

The biggest surprise about Fulci's giallo is the lack of heavy gore. Most of us are so used to seeing his over the top gorefests that we assume he never made anything else as memorable. Not true. Besides this gem of a giallo, Fulci also made a spaghetti western ("Four of the Apocalypse"), a science fiction potboiler ("The New Gladiators"), a sword and sandal flick ("Conquest"), and a mafia thriller ("Contraband"). None of these films achieves the greatness of "Don't Torture a Duckling," although "Four of the Apocalypse" does come close. While there are a few disturbing scenes here that signal the bloody atrocities to come a few years down the road, such as the chain whipping and a body tumbling down a steep cliff shown in extreme slow motion close up, the movie is a relatively bloodless affair. Fulci seems more interested in launching pointed attacks condemning the Catholic Church, the police, and the irrational prejudices of rural Italians. There's nothing like an old-fashioned murder mystery spiced up with social commentary, eh? Throw in an interesting musical score consisting of lots of twangy strings, and Fulci blends every element into a seamless whole.

The only problem I had with "Don't Torture a Duckling" involved the pacing. As good as the film is, it at times slows down to a snail's pace. By the time the credits roll you realize Fulci needed to include everything you just saw in the movie to make it work, but the film still felt slow in parts. Of course, life moves slowly in a small town, so perhaps Fulci merely tweaked his film to match the environment. Anyway, this is a great Italian flick that's sure to entertain. Give it a shot.