Purely Joyful Movie!

Brilliant and touching

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Child killings are the grisly subject of this Lucio Fulci Directed giallo. And he takes delight in some genuinely horrifying scenes.A handful of vengeful men corner Maciara (Florinda Bolkan) in a graveyard and beat her with chains in probably the most disturbing set-piece I've seen in a giallo – and there have been a few. With unhurried deliberation, the blows are dealt slowly and viciously, followed by unflinching moments of blood emerging from new wounds. All this to the sound of triumphant ballads. After such prolonged suffering, you would expect Maciara to survive the ordeal – but no, after dragging her bloodied, broken body across the unforgiving heat of wasteland, she dies by the side of the road, for the most part unnoticed by passing vehicles. Horrifying indeed.There is a carefully maintained sense of unease that permeates throughout the isolated Italian village where these horrors occur, and yet there's a dark vein of … can I call it humour? … running through the more graphic moments in this film. Similarly, as the revealed miscreant is tipped loudly over a ravine, it's probably a brave choice to continually cut to a close-up of his battered face being slowly smashed following every connection with the rock face he is tumbling down. Equally, the injection of more of the deeply inappropriately soulful soundtrack lends a perversion to his slow, violent death.

This particular effort by director Lucio Fulci is considered by many to be one of the director's best films, if not his best film. Though I haven't seen all of Fulci's movies (yet), what I have seen of his filmography so far does place this movie at the top of the list. It's an interesting giallo movie for several reasons. What is curious about it is that there aren't that many sequences of suspense and terror. Indeed, the movie is curiously missing an underlying feeling of building terror despite the rising body count. Though the few scenes that do qualify as being labelled creepy, such as the cemetery sequence and the climax, do come across both as horrifying and disturbing. And while Fulci does miss with adding a slowly building feeling of terror, he does manage to build a great sense of another kind of atmosphere. You really feel the isolation and primitive living conditions the people are experiencing in this out of the way small town in the countryside.The screenplay (which Fulci co-wrote) also has some interesting themes, condemning the backwards and sometimes cruel way people in rural areas live by. If there is a flaw in the screenplay, it is that the revelation of the killer at the end of the movie is no surprise. That's because the character seemed to have no other purpose in his/her earlier scenes. But while the movie has flaws, it still holds up pretty well for the most part, and is essential viewing for people with interest in Italian genre cinema of the 1970s.

Despite some frequently slow pacing, this gaillo is among the best. Lucio Fulci's gruesome thriller about the murder of a several little boys in the Italian countryside is probably the director's best. The plot combines supernatural elements with a traditional murder mystery. Tomas Milian is a reporter investigating the case and the supporting cast includes Barbara Bouchet, Irene Papas and Marc Porel. Florinda Bolken, in a performance that has to be seen to be believed, is a crazed mountain woman who may or may not be the killer. Riz Ortolani, who would score over 200 films in his more than 50-year career, did the chilling music. Frequently cut for its content, the 102 minute version is the most complete.

"Don't Torture A Duckling" is a rather unsettling movie which central themes are rather quite sick and twisted, but being a big fan of Italian slasher movies and the fact this movie was directed by Lucio Fulci, I was very keen to give this movie a go. The setting is rather unique and as always the scenery and location is as beautiful as ever. That's where all the action takes place, the victims are not beautiful scantily clad models but young boys, despite a list of suspects the police as always clueless so it's up to a reporter and a local woman to work together and solve the crimes themselves. That aspect of the movie I rather enjoyed and all the performances by the cast were convincing and each worked well to they're situation.In what starts off as a murder mystery quickly becomes violent and vicious especially the part where a local woman gets lynched by a mob of angry townspeople, which was prolonged and very nasty. The child murders are thankfully not shown in great detail but still shocking and unnerving , and the final showdown was a real highlight and kept me on tenterhooks which I enjoyed.All in all this movie offers a rather different story in a beautiful setting, but still the central theme is not to everyone's taste.