Drive-In Dust Offs: DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING (1972)

Lucio Fulci is known to most horror fans for his work in the fantastical, through his late career success with Zombie (1979), City of The Living Dead (1980), and The Beyond (1981). Certainly these are his most widely seen and cherished films, and for good reason – they blast through the screen in a feast of color, magic, and grue; short on logic, sure, but long on imagination and dread. But before he untethered his heart in a quest for purity, he engaged in his homeland’s horror sub-genre of giallo, including Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972), incredible, subversive proof that he could create something just as effective and decidedly much more earth bound.

Released late September back home in his native Italy, Duckling never received its due (or much attention at all, truthfully) on these shores until Fulci’s death in 1996 offered a re-evaluation of his body of work. Thanks to the internet, the advent of DVD, and the eternal thirst of horror fans for discovery, this film is enjoying a revival as an important chapter for one of Italy’s greatest genre talents. Duckling proves that he could craft a fairly straightforward giallo and offer a deeply personal attack on religious hypocrisy at the same time. It doesn’t offer pipe cleaner spiders, but it is essential viewing nevertheless.

There’s a lot of plot here (especially for a Fulci), so I’m going to draw a broad picture or I’ll be spilling into next week’s column. A group of three adolescent boys from a small, southern Italian village are spying on two men who are having sex with a couple of prostitutes from the city. Also watching is the village idiot, whom the boys taunt before they flee back to the village and the boys club at the church, run by Don Alberto (Marc Porel – The Psychic). One of the boys turns up dead, leading to the arrest of the peeping tom. Meanwhile, crazy local hills woman Maciara (Florinda Bolkan – A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin) is pinning wax figures and digging baby skeletons out of the ground. (She believes herself to be a witch, and with her wide eyed hysteria, I’m inclined to go with her on that.) We’re also introduced to Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet – Gangs of New York), a drug addicted city girl who’s come back to her father’s house to detox, and has an uncomfortable habit of teasing the boys with her naked sexuality. (Literally, in one extended, uncomfortable scene.) One by one the boys are found dead, so intrepid reporter Andrea Martelli (Tomas Milian – Amistad) joins forces with Patrizia to find the murderer. The list of suspects is impressive – could it be Don Alberto, so protective of the children? Or possibly his mother? Then there’s the village idiot, the witch, and let’s not discount our junkie kiddie seductress, either. So many possibilities; but don’t worry, movie logic dictates that the filmmakers will help whittle down your choices, I promise. Fulci’s good like that.

For a Fulci film there’s so much to unpack, you may want to wear your back brace and some comfortable shoes. Let’s start with the original Italian title, Non Si Sevizia Un Paperino – translated directly as Don’t Torture Donald Duck. There’s a mute girl in the film given a Donald Duck figure in lieu of a girl’s doll, and she pulls the head off it leading our protagonists to believe she may have witnessed a murder. (Obviously, they couldn’t use the trademarked name abroad.) And while the original title directly relates death with a childhood toy, the translation adds an intriguing layer. The boys actually do represent ducklings; not yet mature, and awkward in their growth, not unlike an adolescent male. This is a major theme in the film – these are boys encountering the first thrust (and rush) of sexuality; and while the North American slasher would equate sex with death in many cases, Fulci makes a point of the boys’ curiosity as natural and expected, and puts the blame on the isolated Catholic hysteria prevalent in the village.

The boys aren’t the only ones to feel the wrath of the insular order, either; a highlight later in the film has a character trapped and whipped with chains in a graveyard, all set to three pop songs playing on a background radio. (An aesthetic juxtaposition not unnoticed by Quentin Tarantino, guaranteed.) Regardless of guilt (or lack thereof), the villagers go against anyone who doesn’t hold their beliefs. Is the film an anti-Catholic screed? The Church seemed to think so, especially as it was quite successful at home and received a lot of attention; they outright condemned it. It’s hard not to see it as anything but; Duckling is infused with iconography and dialogue that presents the village as shuttered from the rest of the forward thinking world – our chain whipped victim climbs to the top of the hill and reaches out for help, as one oblivious car after another drives by. While Fulci himself was Catholic, one gets the feeling he may have been a bit of a progressive in matters of religious persecution.

The widescreen cinematography of Sergio D’Offizi (Cannibal Holocaust) highlights the lonely vastness of the Italian mountainside and the effect it has on the boys; it offers endless possibilities of their life ahead, while at the same time threatening to engulf them. Those expecting the orgasmic release of gore present in his later releases will feel let down, however there are a couple of key scenes (the graveyard and the finale) that hit very hard due to Fulci’s measured effort throughout the rest of the film to just tell a story, something I was pleasantly surprised to see him accomplish.

He is aided considerably by a cast that finds the right tone for the most part; the occasional outburst is noticed because the film downplays the elevated drama so prevalent in Italian horror. Better than usual dubbing certainly helps communicate the material in a more befitting, restrained manner. (If you dig over the top however, there are a few moments to cherish.) Patrizia, if taken literally, is a disgusting and predatory figure; however, she’s meant to represent the encroaching fear of sexuality facing the boys. It’s still a bold choice by Fulci and his co-screenwriters Roberto Gianviti (A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin) and Gianfranco Clerici (Cannibal Holocaust) to actualize that emotion, and certainly does capture the erotic terror of adolescence. And with Barbara Bouchet as the temptress, the intent shines through clearly.

Of course Don’t Torture a Duckling isn’t perfect; there is the occasional lapse in dialogue and motivation. But this is a film that shows its creator as more than just an exalted horror song and dance man, or master of the smoke and mirror. This is a film that aims for the mind as well as the heart. And while I love Fulci’s magic shows as much as the next fan, I was elated to see the artist standing once the smoke cleared.

Don’t Torture a Duckling is available on DVD from Blue Underground.