Don't Torture a Duckling

Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) is an Italian giallo horror from director Lucio Fulci — watch it online on iFILM. In a remote southern Italian village, boys are being murdered one by one. The local police keep arresting the wrong people: first the village idiot, then a woman who practices folk magic. Neither did it.

Florinda Bolkan and Barbara Bouchet play two women who get drawn into the investigation alongside an outsider journalist from the city. The film's 105 minutes are steeped in rural superstition and that particular Italian brand of hostility toward strangers, with Fulci using both to keep the real culprit hidden in plain sight.

It's often called the director's best work, and there's a case for it — the violence here earns its place in the story rather than just punctuating it. Fulci would go nastier in Zombie and The Beyond, but this one has the tighter script. Stream Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) online on iFILM.