Don’t Torture A Duckling (1972)

DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING (1972) Three-and-a-half stars
The third time proved to be the charm for me and the films of Italian director Lucio Fulci (1927-96), who earned the nicknames “The Godfather of Gore,” “The Spaghetti Splatter King,” and “Horror Maestro.”

About 10 years ago, I watched THE BEYOND and THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (both 1981), two installments of Fulci’s “Gates of Hell” trilogy, and I found them to be two of the most wretched exercises in godawful dubbing, pathetic dialogue and characters and situations recycled from better horror movies (HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY just screams THE SHINING), and laughable gore I have ever seen.

I hated those movies, and I think hate might actually be an understatement. We need a word here that goes beyond hate.

(I have reviews of them buried somewhere.)

Of course, naturally, I came across the DVD of Fulci’s 1972 giallo DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING in the multimedia collection of the Leonard H. Axe Library on the campus of beautiful Pittsburg State University in lovely Pittsburg, Kansas, U.S.A.

I believe I grabbed KING KONG VS. GODZILLA on VHS and Ingmar Bergman’s PERSONA on DVD in a heartbeat that fateful day in 2009. Another day brought EL NORTE and Akira Kurosawa’s THRONE OF BLOOD.

DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING presented a conundrum for me, though, right there smack dab in the middle of the Axe.

The Devil on my shoulder (borrowed from ANIMAL HOUSE) fired off a plot summary, “A reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings in a remote southern Italian town rife with superstition and a distrust of outsiders.”

Sounds good, I thought, because of the reporter and promiscuous young woman part of his presentation.

Hey, I was in college and had just started my career as hotshit, er, hotshot reporter for the Collegio, the school newspaper.

The Devil jumped out to the early lead, because I never heard anything he said past the point of “A reporter and a promiscuous young woman.”

Not to be outdone, The Angel on my other shoulder (also borrowed from ANIMAL HOUSE) reminded me that I hated THE BEYOND and THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY so much.

For his little spiel, The Angel changed his voice into the dub they used for child protagonist Bob in THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY. (Just search for “Bob from The House by the Cemetery” on YouTube and there’s a compilation of all his dialogue scenes. Give it a shot and crank that sucker up. You can thank me later. Hopefully, not with a sharp punch or kick to the groin, though. That compilation’s 3 minutes, 23 seconds of pure dubbed torture they should have used at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.)

I wanted to cover my ears and run right out of the Axe.

With that voice, The Angel sounded more like the Devil.

The Angel, however, did have a point with THE BEYOND and THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY. I mean, for crying out loud, life is too short to watch crap like that.

The Devil came back with the fact DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING includes a fantastic nude scene for the fabulous Barbara Bouchet. (I later discovered The Devil neglected to include the entire story behind this nude scene and that it will likely make you uncomfortable because she’s offering her body to an adolescent boy to initiate him into the world of sex. Damn you, Devil, and your manipulations!)

By the way, The Devil spoke in the voice of Curtis Armstrong’s character from RISKY BUSINESS.

The Devil even gave me the same basic (albeit profane) wisdom Tom Cruise’s Joel received in the movie. The Devil used this wisdom for his final pitch.

“Sometimes you gotta say WHAT THE FUCK, make your move. Brock, every now and then, say WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK brings freedom. Freedom brings opportunity, opportunity makes your future. Grab the movie, check it out, and go watch it.”

Another by the way, isn’t it great that I found a movie like DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING at the Axe Library?

That’s more irony than “Ironic” by Alanis Morrissette, yeah I really do think.

Personally, I think it’s awesome that I studied hard for long hours at the Axe.

I brought DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING home, rigged my VCR to my DVD player and broke all forms of international copyright laws, and I still have copies today.

Great success, just like Borat once said.

The Parents Guide for DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING on IMDb ends on this note of understatement, “A very dark movie.”

Disturbing would also work, but I simply got caught up in the mystery and the themes of Catholic guilt, sexual repression, psychological trauma, and how small towns and communities find scapegoats and carry out their own ripped, twisted vigilante justice. I stayed riveted to the very end and that’s a sign the giallo worked. Fulci had a lot more restraint and tact than he did in THE BEYOND and THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, and that’s the only way to succeed with such lurid subject matter, especially child murders.