I love this movie so much

Purely Joyful Movie!

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

In a mountain village in the South of Italy, a series of young boys are being targeted by a murderer. Andrea Martelli (Tomas Milian), an investigative journalist, and Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet), a local sexpot, end up joining forces to try to solve the crime.In the years before he became synonymous with gory, atmospheric horror films, director Lucio Fulci was one of the masters of the Italian murder mysteries known as Gialli. Here, he exercises good storytelling abilities without falling back on any gimmicks. There is some extremely striking violence at two key points, but here the violence is the exception and not the rule. For the most part, the killer offs the boys by strangling them. And because use of gore is so sparing, its impact is all the greater when it does occur. The vigilante-style murder of a suspect is particularly distressing.Just like any good Giallo, "Don't Torture a Duckling" has no shortage of suspects for us to keep our eyes on, and if they don't have skeletons in their closets, they at least have troubling quirks. (Andrea will actually rearrange a crime scene in order to get the most attention-grabbing photos.) The characters, also including Florinda Bolkan as a local "witch", Marc Porel as a priest, and Irene Papas as his mother, are reasonably colourful and interesting.This international cast makes the most of it, with Bolkan taking the opportunity to chew into the scenery at times.The beautiful scenic locations are wonderfully photographed in widescreen by Sergio D'Offizi, and Riz Ortolani of "Cannibal Holocaust" fame composed the lush, sometimes eerie, score.Essential viewing for Fulci fans, and newcomers to the Giallo genre. Some buffs consider it to be Fulcis' absolute best film.Seven out of 10.

The film was controversial for its day, due to criticizing the Catholic Church, which led to a limited run in Europe and the film being unreleased in the US until 2000.In the south of Italy, more specifically the small village of Accendura, Bruno, Michele, and Tonino are engaged in mischief and other activities. They do all the things you expect little Italian boys to do — smoke cigarettes, watch prostitutes have sex, abuse a pepping tom — earning the ire of La Magiara (Florinda Bolkan, also the star of Fulci's giallo Lizard in a Woman's Skin), a witch who digs up the bones of an infant before conducting a ritual where she creates voodoo style dolls of the three boys, stabbing them with needles and chanting over them.Bruno is the first to go missing, inciting a media frenzy as reporters from all over Italy find the story of the week. Andrea Martelli (Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie, Fulci's Four of the Apocalpyse) is one of them, but smarter than the rest. Sneaking in to the police investigation, he wonders aloud why the kidnappers, who have called in a ransom, have asked for a small ransom. The peeping tom is arrested once it comes out that he buried the boy's body — but he claims that he only did so to try and get the ransom. While he being held for questioning, the second boy, Tonino, is found dead, proving the innocence of the pervert.Meanwhile, the final boy, Michele, meets rich girl gone bad Patrizia, (Barbara Bouchet from The Red Queen Kills Seven Times) who sunbathes in the nude and has no problem letting the young kid watch. Someone calls Michele during a rain storm the next evening and he becomes the third victim.This gives the reporter the chance to meet and get close to Patrizia. Turns out she's hiding out in her rich father's modern house after a drug scandal — MARIJUANA!!! — and the villages have already condemned her as a slut due to how she dresses. The reporter also meets the young village priest, Don Alberto Avallone, who lives with his strange mother and deaf, dumb and mentally deficient little sister.Don Alberto is deeply affected by the boys' deaths, as they were all pupils at his school and he attempted to keep them off the streets and playing soccer. He's so well connected — both in town and with the Catholic Church — that he censors even the magazines on the newsstand. He remarks that he wishes that he could censored Patrizia.One of the things you'll notice about giallo is that the more you watch them, the more you realize that they just introduce you to character after character after character, unlike the traditional British or American detective story where everything happens for a reason.That means it's time to meet someone new — Francesco, an old man who lives in a cave, practices black magic and considers Magiara as his student. He refuses to cooperate with the police, so they hunt Magiara down and interrogate her. She begins to convulse, scream and froth at the mouth, happily admitting that she killed the boys because they disturbed her son's grave. And oh yeah — that child was the son of the devil.Even though she was nowhere near the murder scene, the villagers are convinced that she's the killer. The police can do nothing but release her — a release that leads to her doom, as a walk through a cemetery leads to her being beaten with chains by a gang of men (several of the grieving fathers are in their number). This is where Fulci lets loose with the gore — each hit brings shards of flesh and bone and blood to the fore, ending with Magiara crawling up a cliff, begging for help as cars just pass her by.To the shock of the villagers, the murders don't stop. But at the latest one, Martelli has found a Donald Duck head. This makes Patrizia realize — she bought that doll for Don Albeto's sister, after she found her walking with another headless doll.Their theory — that the little girl is imitating her mother by pulling the heads off the dolls — is a decent one. But they're wrong — it's really the priest who was behind it all, killing the young boys so they can go to Heaven with clean souls. After a brutal fistfight, the priest loses his balance and falls to the rocks below. This scene would be awesome with modern effects work, but instead Fulci must rely on a mannequin looking body — a sad sight as it's in full close up numerous times as the body bounces off rocks and emits showers of blood.Read more at http://bit.ly/2yHBEUq

Following a child's death in a small-town, a reporter and a woman from a nearby city try to solve the strange killings that continue to be carried out on the children and once they find the demented culprit at the center they try to stop the rampage from continuing.This was quite the enjoyable and underrated Giallo. The biggest factor here for this one is the film flying boldly along and feeling comfortable in it's rather strong and confrontational themes that may be quite uncomfortable. Its initial premise is tied around a serial killer offing children that alone gives it some courage to be unique and brave, but there's more to that here as several scenes here with the opening strangling scenes or a rather chilling scene finding another drowned in a town well, though the fact that this features even more types of similarly controversial scenes is what really sells this one. The type of plot here is one thing, but to have the kids smoking, bullying the town retard and the film's showpiece scene of a fully naked woman openly toying with him, teasing him with her figure and about sleeping with her makes for quite a sleazy, depraved time in a truly memorable scene. Beyond this, the film is a fantastic Giallo that features a lot of stylistic elements usually associated with these as the stalking scenes come off incredibly well regardless of their target. The cemetery stalking here is impressive through the driving rain before the killer strikes, a chase through the open woods out into the mountains to corral a suspect and a later scene where the suspect is viciously and brutally beaten in retaliation for what happened all come together to give this one some really enjoyable scenes. As well, there are some great times in the big brawl at the end which gets fun with the action as well as the location playing into it for some fun here, and these here make this good enough to overcome the flaws. The biggest issue here is the flimsy plot line for a Giallo, where it jumps around to the different suspects here without any reason only to start doing investigative work in the final minutes as the rampage continues despite the supposed death of the killer which starts it up again. This might be a revolutionary ploy for the style, but it causes the film to flip around pretty constantly here. Along with the subject matter being a little tough for some to take, there here are the film's only flaws.Rated UR/R: Graphic Violence, Full Nudity, Graphic Language, children smoking, themes of pedophilia, violence-against-animals and children-in-danger.

I watched a pristine bluray print of Don't Torture a Duckling. Did anybody else feel that Don Alberto Avallone was like Holden Caufield in J.D.Salinger's Catcher in the Rye? Holden Caufield wanted to become the catcher that saved children from falling off the cliff and preserved their innocence. But Don Alberto actually threw them off the cliff so that they do not fall into the arms of sin. HAHAHHAHAHHAAHA! This film wasn't too bad. Not sure if it is a Giallo. The film begins with the a wide angle shot of a seemingly idyllic Italian village (like the one where Pacino escapes into in The Godfather). Then Riz Ortolani's sinister score sets in and there is a close up of an ugly and filthy woman (Florinda Bolkan) burying bones in the sand. Nice way to catch the viewer's attention.A backward Italian village rife with rituals and superstition becomes the focus of national attention when dead strangled kids start turning up all over the place. Then there is a bisexual paedophillic heiress (Barbaba Bouchert) who preys on small teenage boys and girls. Tomas Milan (who looks like he would be perfect in a spaghetti western) is a journalist who is investigating the child murders.We are often treated to images of pins being poked into dolls. The whole village wears a rather desolate look. While the village seems authentic, you can tell that Bouchet's room is clearly a set. It did have some nice set pieces though - especially the fish tank with the waves.The violence is gratuitous and is highly stylized with a rock n roll song and a slow number playing in the background when Florinda Balkan is murdered. Ortolani's memorable title score which has a nostalgic vibe is used to great effect in the final scenes.I am not entirely convinced by my 8 rating. But the film has so much going for it - like the atmosphere that Fulci creates with the constant religious wailing that hovers over the village, the beautiful landscapes, Ortolani's score and last but not in anyway the least, the extraordinarily beautiful Barbara Bouchet who is introduced laying on a couch stark naked. (8/10)