What a waste of my time!!!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This particular effort by director Lucio Fulci is considered by many to be one of the director's best films, if not his best film. Though I haven't seen all of Fulci's movies (yet), what I have seen of his filmography so far does place this movie at the top of the list. It's an interesting giallo movie for several reasons. What is curious about it is that there aren't that many sequences of suspense and terror. Indeed, the movie is curiously missing an underlying feeling of building terror despite the rising body count. Though the few scenes that do qualify as being labelled creepy, such as the cemetery sequence and the climax, do come across both as horrifying and disturbing. And while Fulci does miss with adding a slowly building feeling of terror, he does manage to build a great sense of another kind of atmosphere. You really feel the isolation and primitive living conditions the people are experiencing in this out of the way small town in the countryside.The screenplay (which Fulci co-wrote) also has some interesting themes, condemning the backwards and sometimes cruel way people in rural areas live by. If there is a flaw in the screenplay, it is that the revelation of the killer at the end of the movie is no surprise. That's because the character seemed to have no other purpose in his/her earlier scenes. But while the movie has flaws, it still holds up pretty well for the most part, and is essential viewing for people with interest in Italian genre cinema of the 1970s.

Masterpiece. This movie cannot have been made before or after.Excellent story, acting, plot, cinematography. The cemetery beating scene is excellent. The ending fight scene. Many great location shots.See this movie. Masterpiece. This movie cannot have been made before or after.Excellent story, acting, plot, cinematography. The cemetery beating scene is excellent. The ending fight scene. Many great location shots.See this movie. Masterpiece. This movie cannot have been made before or after.Excellent story, acting, plot, cinematography. The cemetery beating scene is excellent. The ending fight scene. Many great location shots.See this movie.

Eccenlente. Fantastico. Magnifico. Grande. Molto grande. This is probably the finest Fulci movie. The first Fulci movie I saw was 'City of the Living Dead' and I was blown away. Then naturally I saw 'Zombi 2', 'The Beyond', 'House by the Cemetery' and 'The Black Cat. 'The Black Cat' being the weakest among them. I think they're all good atmosphere and gore horror movies - 'House by the Cemetery' being the most disturbing one - but I often thought that I should see something more coherent. Something more bound in reality. Don't get me wrong, Fulci makes excellent super-natural/abstract horror movies, I just felt he must be also good at making movies with coherent plots and stories. That's when I turned to 'Don't Torture a Duckling'. A sinister Giallo with a murderer strangling young boys. Already from the beginning we go into something very disturbing, something controversial. As the movie progress it just gets worse. Themes: repression, sin, guilt, sexual aberrant behavior, bigotry and violence. Genre: thriller/horror. Subgenre: Giallo/murder mystery. Writers: Lucio Fulci, Roberto Gianviti and Gianfranco Clerici. Director: Lucio Fulci.This movie is strongly critical of society and religion. For example, people were blaming the outsider for all the killings. The outsider being a disturbed woman who is a supposed witch. This is where the bigotry comes in. A person who doesn't believe in God is labeled a bad person by the majority of people in the movie. In fact, she ended up being beaten to death with chains by men. All because she was different and because people had the opinion of it might be her, because she was the odd outsider. To make it worse, she tried to get help by crawling to a road where a lot of cars were driving by. But they ignored her. They were too occupied with what they were doing they did not care about a dying woman. I cried because of that scene. That scene evoke such strong emotions in me. It was the first time I cried watching a Giallo and the last time so far. It was a strong criticism of society's bigotry. Religion was strongly criticized too. It showed that repressing sexual tendencies made things worse. As shown by a priest repressing his homosexual tendencies by strangling young boys. Strangling is the most intense form of intimacy there is.Christianity sees sexuality as a sin, although it is completely natural. To make matters worse the priest was justifying his crimes as a service to God. Denying his sexual urge which disgusted him and made him aggressive. It was very brave to come up with such criticism by Fulci. Especially with sexuality and religion being taboo at the time of release. It is no wonder this movie was blacklisted and Fulci became a notorious figure. The movie is also relevant to this day, with scandals of pedophile priests who are being bailed by the Vatican. Anyway, the movie has an iron grip atmosphere, thought provoking story, engaging plot, horrifying murders and a direction by Fulci which has never been better. Should be watched by all Giallo aficionados. This is my favorite Fulci movie and think that it is definitely his finest. I put the movie in such high regard I think it is on par with Dario Argento's 'Deep Red'. 10/10. Molto grande Giallo.

Note: no ducklings were harmed in the making of this film. In fact, there are no ducklings; the title is figurative. What we have here is a fine mystery coated with a sleek veneer of horrific blood, from one of the Italian masters, Lucio Fulci.In this movie, a series of child murders has a small town in a tizzy - they blame the local witch, but the constabulary believes someone else is behind the mayhem. A reporter named Martelli (Tomas Milian), with sharp eyes and keen insight, lends support to the police, who are uncharacteristically receptive to his opinions. In any event, though, the killer remains at large, even when the citizenry has run out of obvious culprits.The local witch, Magiara (Florinda Bolkan), is seen creating three dolls out of clay and inserting multiple pins into them. Is she behind the murders? What about dim-witted handyman Guiseppe (Vito Passeri), who had been relentlessly mocked by three of the boys? What about cosmopolitan Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet), who's hiding out in the village thanks to drug charges she encountered in Milan? None of these three are paragons of Catholic behavior, and of course the Catholic Church is, shall we say, Almighty.There be blood in this movie that's not about ducks at all, and that's what Fulci's known for, anyway. It'd be much more shocking if there were no gore, really. But although the blood is anything but subtle, it is parceled out as if there were a national shortage. (Come to think of it, there's always a shortage of blood, according to the Red Cross.) Not only that, but much of the bloody violence occurs late in the movie, as the mystery is wrapping up. And it's a pretty suspenseful, too, as long as you don't ponder the possible suspects too long.Milian is very good, as are Bolkan and Irene Papas (as the mother of the village priest), although the fact that the version I saw was dubbed into English, rather than subtitled. But the words and the facial expressions seemed to match, so it was a darn good dubbing. There was occasional histrionic overacting, but overall this hit the mark.