Don't Torture a Duckling
Don't Torture a Duckling is a 1972 film from Italy, directed by Lucio Fulci, running 102 minutes. reelscum files it under giallo.
- Year
- 1972 · 1970s films
- Country
- Italy
- Runtime
- 102 min
- Director
- Lucio Fulci
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (25/100)
- Also known as
- The Long Night of Exorcism
Defined in the glossary: Giallo
Fulci's best film and his angriest. A giallo about mob justice in a village.
Lucio Fulci's best film and his angriest. Children are being murdered in a poor southern Italian village, and the investigation becomes a study of how a frightened, superstitious community turns on its own outsiders. The mob-justice sequence, a woman beaten with chains in a cemetery while a pop song plays, is one of the most disturbing things Fulci shot.
It is a giallo pointed at the Church, the media and rural cruelty rather than at glamorous city murder, which is why it was buried for years. Fulci clearly meant every accusation.
His most serious work, and the one that shows what he could do when he cared.
Trailer
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Written about
- Gut-munchers: the Italian zombie boom, 1979 to 1983
There was no first one. Argento recut Romero, Fulci forged the sequel, and Italy spent four years feeding the British censors.
The cycle in depth
- The giallo, 1963 to 1976
A line of yellow paperbacks, a killer in black gloves, and Mario Bava building the American slasher a decade before Hollywood cashed the cheque.
On these lists
- The giallo starter pack
Six films, in this order. By the end you will know whether you can live without the plot making sense.
Filed alongside
What Have You Done to Solange?
Unusually sad for a giallo, and much better for it.
Opera
Needles taped under the eyes so she cannot look away. Argento's last truly great film.
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The one usually called the first giallo. Still half a krimi.
Alice, Sweet Alice
American giallo in Catholic New Jersey. Genuinely disturbing and well acted.
Four Flies on Grey Velvet
Argento's third. Unavailable for decades, and worth the wait for the last shot.
Torso
Sleazy for an hour, then a brilliant silent final act.
The New York Ripper
Genuinely nasty and hard to defend. The killer quacks. It doesn't help.
A Lizard in a Woman's Skin
Fulci does psychedelia. The dog scene got him prosecuted.
The Cat o' Nine Tails
Argento's least favourite of his own films. He is roughly right.
Blood and Black Lace
The template, and still the best-looking film on this list.
Inferno
Argento's sequel to Suspiria. Even less plot, even more colour. A building that is alive.
A Bay of Blood
Bava invents the slasher a decade early. Friday the 13th copied two kills outright.