About

Don't Torture a Duckling will screen from an archival 35mm film print.

Don't Torture a Duckling is a deeply chilling giallo classic centred on a series of child-murders in a small Italian village. When a reporter from Rome teams up with a big-city woman laying low in the town, they must deal with the locals' suspicion and desire for vengeance while trying to get to the bottom of the horrific killings.

Fulci pulls no punches in his sordid depiction of small town paranoia and twisted faith. He does not moralise, but the subversive commentary about the police and the Catholic Church is full-throated and direct. Despite not being one of his goriest works, there remains a startling intensity to the depiction of violence within the film. Don't Torture a Duckling may have an oblique and seemingly baffling title, but it is one of the great pieces of giallo cinema and deserves its place amongst the best of Fulci's oeuvre.

MA15+