Friday Film Showcased, Episode 5: Giallo – Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)

For many years, with regard to their film-watching, Ciara and Conor have been theming their months. On Friday Film Showcased (FFS to friends, and sometimes enemies), they look back on themes gone by.

In the quintus episode of FFS, Ciara and Conor continue their discussion of the giallo genre with a deep dive on Lucio Fulci’s 1972 masterpiece, Don’t Torture a Duckling. Spoilers abound! You can find our previous instalment, where we discussed giallo more broadly, here. (Including an edition in which all screams have been replaced by bunny noises. How relaxing!)

And make sure to tune in to the end of the episode for Conor’s original song inspired by the film!

Episode 5: Giallo – Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) Friday Film Showcased

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Giallo list on Letterboxdhttps://letterboxd.com/hoganassasin/list/giallo-season/

Mentioned in the podcast

Ciara’s Fangoria article about Don’t Torture a Duckling: ⁠https://www.fangoria.com/lucio-fulci-so-much-more-than-the-godfather-of-gore-dont-torture-a-duckling-at-50/

The Giallo Files: https://giallofiles.blogspot.com/

Lucio Fulci: So Much More Than The Godfather Of Gore

Lucio Fulci “was sort of an Italian Hershell Gordon Lewis,” Roger Ebert wrote in 1998, dismissing The Beyond as a plotless and dim-witted movie full of bad special effects and worse dialogue. It’s not surprising that Ebert didn’t like The Beyond – he thought Friday the 13th was disgusting enough trash to warrant a letter writing campaign, after all – but what is surprising is how much Fulci’s legacy is framed more or less as Ebert had it, just with a positive inflection.

Ciara wrote about Lucio Fulci’s masterpiece Don’t Torture a Duckling for Fangoria on its fiftieth anniversary! You can read it here.