Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned)   CLICK HERE to buy from Blu-ray + DVD combo Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!

Accendura is a small and slightly backwards rural village in Southern Italy where nothing of interest ever happens ... until a young boy is found brutally killed. The local police captain (Virginio Gazzolo) is quick to make out the killer in local simpleton Barra (Vito Passeri), who has tried to get ransom from the boy's parents, but it soon becomes all too apparent that he had only jumped a bandwagon and tried to extort money but had nothing to do with the murder even indirectly. Things get a bit out of hand when more boys turn up dead, and soon a new culprit is found in Magiara (Florinda Bolkan), an alleged witch who has lived in caves near the town for years, and she even admits to the murders - but when she insists she hasn't strangled the boys but put pins into voodoo dolls and all evidence other than her confession prove her innocent, she's let go - but local superstitions make sure that a small lynch mob slaughters her anyhow.

Now it's up to Marelli (Tomas Millian), a reporter from Rome, and Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet), a rich girl from the city trying to beat her drug addiction in the country who's shunned though for her liberal lifestyle, to find the killer since the police seems to be rather clueless, and it's not made any easier by the fact that Patrizia soon comes under suspicion herself. The only one who offers help though is the local priest (Marc Poreli), who has tried to fight superstition among the locals for years but without success - but the little village it seems has more skeletons in its closet than there are living souls, skeletons that come back to haunt the living ...

Made almost a decade before director Lucio Fulci found his (permanent) home in horror, Don't Torture a Duckling is a very well-conceived giallo that offers plenty of expertly placed suspense scenes and jump scares, some gory shocks and an abundance of macabre details, and it's also a film that really uses its locations, not only for their exterior beauty but also to help tell the story - a story that might be plenty confusing, but that's part of the fun of the classic giallo. And in its own way, Don't Torture a Duckling is also a very stylish movie and thus a delight to all fans of genre nostalgia - as well as people just looking for some good thrills!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned)

The links below will take you just there!!!

Find Don't Torture a Duckling at the amazons ...   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.de Looking for imports? Find Don't Torture a Duckling here ...   eThaiCD.com Your shop for all things Thai

Thanks for watching !!!