Review #1,210: 'Don't Torture a Duckling' (1972)

Despite having a loyal legion of fans and cementing his name as one of the pioneers of Italian splatter, the work of the so-called 'Godfather of Gore' (a title I reserve for Herschell Gordon Lewis and nobody else), Lucio Fulci, has never completely won me over. Arguably his most popular film, Zombie Flesh Eaters, left me struggling to stay awake, and the likes of The Black Cat, The New York Ripper and Warriors of the Year 2072 range from piss-poor to tedious at best, although it could be said that these are minor works in an extensive filmography. However, I adored The Beyond and City of the Living Dead, and there is something quite spectacular about his early gialli. A Lizard in a Woman's Skin was dazzling and truly weird, and Don't Torture a Duckling, made the following year, stands on its own as one of the strangest and most engrossing thrillers to be found in the genre.

In a remote Italian village, three young boys spy on couples about to engage in sex through a barn door and later torment the local idiot and peeping tom Giuseppe (Vito Passeri). Soon enough, the boys start turning up dead, murdered and discarded in the surrounding areas. Giuseppe is arrested, but is soon released when another boy is killed while the simpleton is in custody. A media circus descends on the town, while intrigued journalist Andrea (Tomas Milian) and police chief Captain Modesti (Ugo D'Alessio) search for clues. Tongues start to wag as the beautiful Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet) arrives in town with a shady past and skimpy outfits, as she is quickly viewed with suspicion. Yet with a town full of eccentrics and loners, it's difficult to figure out just who the killer is. Is it the old nut at the top of the hill, or are the murders the result of black magic performed by demented witch Maciara (Florinda Bolkan)?

The village of Accendura and its surroundings are a beautiful backdrop for the carnage and unspeakable horror playing out in the story. The ignorance of isolated small-town folks and the dangers of pitch-fork-waving mentality seems to be the main theme, something that Fulci explored later in his zombie movie City of the Living Dead. However, themes tend to take a back-seat in a film this bonkers, and Fulci has fun lining up the band of possible suspects and weaving in convoluted red-herring sub-plots to keep the audience guessing. There are many strange moments, including a scene in which Patrizia seems unnervingly comfortable displaying her naked body in front of a nervous young boy. Fulci can't resist dabbling in a bit of gore, and it's here that Don't Torture a Duckling stutters, climaxing with an unintentionally hilarious death featuring some diabolical special effects. Still, it's up there with the director's best work, and a must-see for fans of the more out-there gialli.


Directed by: Lucio Fulci
Starring: Florinda Bolkan, Barbara Bouchet, Tomas Milian, Irene Papas
Country: Italy

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #639: 'A Lizard in a Woman's Skin' (1971)

Carol Hammond (Florinda Bolkan), the daughter of a wealthy politician and lawyer, sees a psychiatrist to help deal with her increasingly bizarre and possibly prophetic dreams. In the dream, she is running down a corridor filled with naked, writhing young bodies to meet her neighbour Julia (Anita Strindberg), only to stab her to death. When Julia is found dead for real, stabbed repeatedly with a letter opener, chain-smoking Detective Corvin (Stanley Baker) is brought in, and pulls Carol's prints off Julia's bed and corpse. In what at first becomes an open and shut case, soon develops into a complex mystery where everyone is a suspect.

Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci is better known for his splatter-fest horror and zombie films, some of which are excellent, some of which are distinctively below par. But his early giallo output is where he seemed to excel most, and A Lizard in a Woman's Skin is one of the finest of the early giallo's, showing Fulci's (and the genre's) flair for beautiful Italian women, gorgeous cinematography, paint-red gore and a mysterious killer. But here there is only one murder, which in itself sets the film aside from most other giallo's, which more often than not revel in their blood-letting. This is slow-building and driven by atmosphere and mystery above all else.

With a jazzy score by the great Ennio Morricone, the film dazzles with two beautifully realised dream sequences, which show Fulci's unrecognised eye for the visual. With the naked flesh of beautiful women combined with the bold colours of the set design and splashings of blood, evoke an LSD trip - with Fulci here dabbling in the hippy scene. But behind it all there is a gripping mystery, one that will keep you guessing until the very, very end. Red herrings pile on top of red herrings, and alibi's are proven and then disproven. It all gets a bit too much, up to the point where you wonder whether the baffled Corvin is just going to give up and arrest himself. But that is the joy of the giallo, pushing things so far to the extreme that they go beyond ridiculous and into sublime surrealism, and A Lizard in a Woman's Skin is one of the finest examples.


Directed by: Lucio Fulci
Starring: Florinda Bolkan, Stanley Baker, Jean Sorel, Silvia Monti
Country: Italy/Spain/France

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #423: 'Flavia the Heretic' (1974)

One of the more notorious films to come out of the 'nunsploitation' sub-genre, Flavia the Heretic is certainly a curious oddity, obeying the traditions of the genre with titillation and torture, while at the same time producing moments of art, exploring themes such as feminism, religion and sex. It tells the story of a 14-century nun, Flavia Gaetani (Florinda Bolkan), who after being placed into the church by her overbearing father, embarks on a journey through a world dominated by men. She witnesses one of her fellow nuns being brutally tortured after losing her way during a visit from the 'tarantula sect', sees rape at the hands of powerful men, and is even captured and whipped by her own father.

After the Moslems invade, Flavia falls in love with one of their leaders Ahmed (Anthony Higgins) and the two start a love affair. Returning to her convent, Flavia, with a band of Moslem warriors behind her, wreaks revenge on all those who have wronged her and succumbs to an orgy of sex and violence. It is here, within the last forty minutes where the film certainly ignites the interest. The juxtaposition of sexual violence (which includes male rape and sex with swords) with the violence is quite disturbing in the same way as Pasolini's Salo (1975) was, but came out the year before. Pasolini's controversial movie is by far a better film, but Flavia did surprise me with its world cinema attitude and scenes of almost avant-garde strangeness (a naked woman crawls inside a hanging animal carcass as the violence explodes around her).

Although I would say it is unfair to label this as simply 'exploitation', the film does succumb to the Grindhouse audiences desire for cheap thrills. The endless array of 1970's flesh does become tiresome in the first half, where the events that are supposed to be developing Flavia's feelings of injustice come across as nothing more as an excuse to get more tits on the screen. This causes the majority of the first film to be extremely slow-moving and often quite tiresome. Yet overall, when you peel back the layers of exploitation, there is an interesting movie beneath that does a lot with its apparent small budget, just as long as you can stomach scenes of sexual mutilation and human skinning.


Directed by: Gianfranco Mingozzi
Starring: Florinda Bolkan, María Casares, Claudio Cassinelli, Anthony Higgins
Country: Italy/France

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie