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Don't Torture a Duckling
Release Date: 1972
Director: Lucio Fulci
The movie that ruined Lucio Fulci's career. In reality his lack of skills are to blame for that, but he blames this film...
It begins in a pretty mundane fashion, nothing interesting occurs. We get treated to some really nice looking cinematography, and some esoteric imagery. We also get the misfortune of hearing some jarring music. We see some kids playing, and a weird person burying action figures
That in a nutshell sums up the first half an hour of the film.
As 'Duckling' progresses at it's tortoise like pace, we get rewarded with an off screen kill! What better way to reward the audience after enduring 30 minutes of chatty photography. The killer targets children and all of the kills take place off screen. Which is very unsettling for an Italian film, which were never know for their great acting. Nonetheless the lame 'Duckling' creeps along introducing us to cardboard characters, that are as bland as a bowl of malt0meal.
Several murder suspects are thrown in to keep your mind going, sadly none of them are believable. There is one nice gory killing in the film.That is really quite savage in it's brutality. A women, a mob, and a bunch of chains, nice stuff for sure
That is the apex of this Italian outing. Except of coarse, for the great locations, which I found stunning. The exotic, ethnic looking village was a real treat, until it got overused. I think the film maker like myself realized it was the best aspect of the flick, and began whoring it out.
The score had some really good music in it, that fit the town perfectly. Also some seriously bad, and out of place music, found it's place in there. So drastically out of place, it made me forget about the great tunes that had been played. Why they used such outrageous music during the lynching scene I will never know. It almost ruined it!!
I can't really talk about the killer, or the finally, without ruing what little the movie has going for it. I will say the fight scenes are not a not a strength, and execution was incredibly poor.
The Bottom Line:
Don't Torture A Duckling is great to look at, but miserable to watch. Fantastic landscapes are largely wasted, by heaps of inane dialogue.Very little gore & only one onscreen kill didn't manage to hold my attention, I doubt it will hold yours either.
Still the scenery was strong enough to power the this to a 5/10.
Locations were 'the' only highlight to be found.
Shameless Plugs...
*this review was requested by KingovHell*