Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Only now does it occur to me... DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING

Only now does it occur to me...  what's up with Lucio Fulci and ducks?

Early Fulci effort DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING (known in the United Kingdom as "DON'T TORTURE DONALD DUCK") involves child murders and headless Donald Duck dolls.


Sometimes it involves living children and intact Donald Duck dolls.


Combine this with NEW YORK RIPPER's spectacular use of a Donald Duck-voiced killer,
and you have a puzzling cinematic fetish almost on par with his love of worms, or eye injury.  What happened to Fulci?  Was it like out a giallo– some childhood trauma relating to Donald Duck (and eye injury?) compelled him to spend his days exorcising his demons on the silver screen?  Inquiring minds must know!

4 comments:

Giuseppe Balestra (MaximaFobia) said...

"Non si sevizia un paperino".
One of his best..

Sean Gill said...

Giuseppe,

Without a doubt– while I love Fulci, some of his latter-day work (MURDER ROCK, DEMONIA, CONQUEST) holds more of a humorous, so-bad-it's-brilliant fascination, but his early work (DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN, etc.) is legitimately well made, freaky stuff. Thanks for stopping by!

Giuseppe Balestra (MaximaFobia) said...

My favourite Fulci's work is "E tu vivrai nel Terrore... l' Aldilà!". If i'm not wrong outside Italy it's known simply as "The Beyond".
ps. It's always a pleasure to read you. Take a look at my blog, i think you may like my artworks! http://diegbdie.blogspot.it/

Sean Gill said...

Giuseppe,

I love THE BEYOND as well, and thank you for the kind words.

I checked out your blog, too. Your work is amazing– it's dark and atmospheric, and incredibly evocative in all the ways horror illustration ought to be. Thank you for sharing; I'll be following your work.