Friday Night Fulci: DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING (1972) : Don't Let The Title Fool You!

The victim of a rather lame excuse for a title, Don't Torture A Duckling (Non si sevizia un paperino) is a far cry from director Lucio Fulci's zombie-gore movies he is so very famous for in horror circles.  An on-point giallo film from 1972, it is considered to be one of the director's best, but one can experience where Fulci's love affair with gruesome effects started by watching this mystery/thriller.

Someone is killing young boys in the small Italian hamlet of Accendura and it seems there are several suspects as the film begins.  Local peeping tom Giuseppe (Vito Passeri) has a habit of watching couples copulating and when he is caught doing so by three mischievous lads (who themselves are overly interested in naked women, natch), he warns them he will kill them.

Not to be taken too seriously, Giuseppe is more or less the village idiot, so he is an easy target when the police find him hovering over a shoddy, haphazardly-dug grave that ends up being one of the boys.  Giuseppe professes his innocence, claiming that he found the boy dead already and only buried him so that he could try to get ransom money from the child's parents.

As these events unfold, we have also been introduced to a mysterious gypsy woman (Florinda Bolkan) who is first seen digging up the bones of a small child and making off with them, and then crafting three crude dolls out of clay and performing some kind of voodoo ritual on them.  It's obvious, after she catches the three boys spying on her at the child's grave, that she's more than a little pissed at them - and has the means to take her revenge.

Meanwhile, one of the boys, Michele, is asked by his mother to deliver a tray of juice to her employer - a beautiful woman named Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet) who is hiding out in the tiny town due to a drug scandal. She just happens to be sunbathing in the nude when Michele comes in and soon she gets all creepy with the twelve year old, spilling juice down her breasts and offering herself to him sexually. (Can you say pedophile??). Michele, in case you were wondering, doesn't get a chance to act on the invitation because his mother calls him away. (Damn her anyhow!)

After the death of the first boy, reporters and detectives assemble in the town in an attempt to discover the murderer. One of the reporters, Martelli (Tomas Milian), takes a shine to Patrizia (and who wouldn't?- she's gorgeous!) and is baffled when he finds several clues that seem to point to her as the murderer.  The police, after another murder occurs even though they are holding Giuseppe in custody, realize they may have arrested the wrong person and begin to concentrate on the gypsy woman. Soon, evidence leads them to Patrizia as well, who is confused by the interrogation.  She and Martelli team up to find the true identity of the killer, before it's too late.

Don't Torture A Duckling wasn't my first Fulci film by far. I'd already flew through most of his gorier works like The New York Ripper, House by the Cemetery, Zombi 2, and The Beyond.  Honestly I had no idea this film was considered a giallo, either, until I actually took a peek at it about ten or twelve years ago. As previously mentioned, it was touted as one of Fulci's best works, and it is probably his most critically acclaimed film as well.  Regarding the gore, there is a reasonable amount. It's that hokey, inferior gore that isn't that great but we love it anyway, don't we?  Give me second-rate gore over today's laughable CGI any day! There is a scene near the end, one that I vividly recall from former viewings that, while ludicrous and really fake-looking, really screams FULCI!  You'll know it when you see it.

DTAD is a vivid piece of film making, it really is.  While I would never say the style is up to say, Argento's beautiful expression and impassioned approach, it holds its own with above-par cinematography and a gritty tone that helps it to stand apart from some of his other, less-appealing works.  The story, while simple, is fashioned with a social commentary regarding how misfits are treated and how small towns still look at outsiders with resentment that often turns to anger and in turn, violence.Sadly, that kind of thing doesn't seem to have changed, no matter what country, no matter what decade.

If you're wondering where the ridiculous title comes from, it's one of those titles that loses a lot in translation. In Italian, Non si sevizia un paperino translates to "Don't Torture Donald Duck", which seems quite comical but really does have meaning within the film. If you watch all the way through, you will get it. But the title has done nothing to make any of Fulci's fans want to entertain the idea of watching it. So it's here that I say: don't let the goofy title dissuade you from taking a chance on this great giallo film. It really is some of Fulci's best work.

(This review originally posted at Dr. Terror's Blog of Horrors as part of his Italian Horror Week this year. If you are a fan of Italian horror - get your fix right here.  Lots of superb work!)

Friday Night Fulci: The Beyond (1981) : Fulci's Hottest And Best Mess

 Nowadays, with social media a regular part of life, I'm always posting on Facebook and/or Twitter about how I'm having a Friday Night Fulci fest at my house, so I figured it was high time to review some of those films, as I'm a big fan of the Italian director so famous for gruesome video nasties.

(This particular review originally posted at Dr. Terror's Blog of Horrors back in July of 2012 for his popular Italian Horror Week, but for completeness I am including it here.)

I first remember seeing The Beyond (L'aldilà, 1981),as a teenager. I’d already seen City of the Living Dead (a.k.a. The Gates of Hell) and The House by the Cemetery (because let’s face it, the titles were cool as shit and the VHS covers were their best advertisement!) and the first time I watched The Beyond, it was actually entitled Seven Doors of Death (probably the real reason I picked it up). A few years later I managed to see the uncut version with the original title.

 It’s hard to describe the feeling you get the first time you see The Beyond. Obviously it’s as fucked up as the day is long, with no rhyme or reason for much of its running time. But the deaths are sublime - man-eating spiders, crucifixion, acid baths, impalements, facial melting with quicklime, etc. Fulci never backed away from gore and in fact relished its use. The Beyond is kind of a hot mess, but is near and dear to not only this horror fan but countless others.

The film starts in 1927, with a blast from the past in which we observe a lynch mob tracking down a New Orleans artist (Antoine Saint-John) thought to be a warlock. They find him at the Seven Doors Hotel, and as a young girl reads from an occult text in the background, the mob busts into his house, quickly subdues him, and drags him to the basement to kill him in as horrific a manner as possible. All the while our doomed artist Schweick denounces witchcraft and tries to plead with the men, warning them that the basement is one of the seven gateways to hell. (Yeah, if it were me that would have given me reason to pause, but not our big tough men.) They first beat him bloody senseless with chains, then nail him to the cellar wall with spike nails and throw quicklime acid on his face. Naturally his face melts away (in a gruesome style not unlike Raiders of the Lost Ark) and they seal him into a hole in the basement, all but forgotten.

Years later a young woman named Liza (Catriona MacColl, a staple in several of Fulci’s films) comes to the house by way of an inheritance. She hires several handymen to fix the place up with intent to put it to its original use again as a hotel.
Plumber Joe (Giovanni De Nava) heads to the basement to find the leak that is keeping the cellar full of water and stumbles upon said gateway. He is viciously attacked by the spirit of Schweick and dispatched of in a gruesome manner, with a ghoul’s hand scooping out his eyeball (another of Fulci’s famous constants). Soon after, the maid searching for Joe gets impaled on a nail and out pops her eye as well. (Sensing a trend here.) My favorite death in the film is a man who is eaten to death by giant tarantulas. It's totally fake-looking but you can't help but love it. Another eye gets taken out in that scene. Obviously Fulci has some sort of gore fetish about eyes.

Meanwhile, Liza meets a young doctor named John (David Warbeck) who is called when a workman mysteriously falls off her roof.
They in turn, are warned about the gateway to hell by Emily, a blind psychic (recognizable as the young girl reading from the occult book in the beginning of the film) whose seeing-eye dog eventually turns on her by ripping out her throat.

Liza and John become determined to find out what is going on at the hotel and after finding said occult book in a local bookshop, work together amidst zombies and irrational supernatural events to try to close the portal to hell.

Gore is the main event in this and most of Fulci’s zombie adventures. The Beyond is the second film in the “Gates of Hell trilogy” (tucked neatly between City of the Living Dead and House by the Cemetery) and is thought to be Fulci’s best film by many in the genre.

 It must be mentioned that the great Fabio Frizzi provides one of the most chilling scores of his well-received career, and the fantastic, atmosphere-inducing piano solos easily rival Argento favorite Goblin’s scores as some of the best in Italian films.

Despite having poor narratives and even worse linear form, it still shines as a stellar example of the gruesome zombie films of the early eighties and gives a gore-happy fan exactly what they want.

While the ending is more confusing than satisfying, it is open to interpretation and will have genre fans discussing it for years to come.