Don't Torture a Duckling (1972)

[Joe the Destroyer]

Recently picked it up since I've been in a big giallo mood lately, and I haven't seen a Lucio Fulci film in a while.  It was pretty good, for the most part, but like other murder mysties, I pretty much called who the killer pretty quickly. 

I thought the most impressive thing about the movie was the blood effects.  That is, apart from the obvious dummies that were used in a few scenes, but the scene where the kid is laying face down in the water with a contusion on the back of his head was brutally realistic.  Unlike some of Fulci's later films, this one doesn't go gaga with gore and blood, but does have quite  a bit.

But, of all the scenes in the film, I think the dummy-falling-down-the-cliff was classic.  All I could think while seeing this was Team America, except a bit gory. 

So, does anyone know of a fairly conclusive list of giallo films?  I've got a couple on DVD, but I've been trying to pick more up.  I've already got Opera and New York Ripper.  I tried to grab Tenebrae, but found it out it's out of print. 

[Shadow]

Wikipedia has a decent list, though it's not conclusive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giallo

Brian over at Eccentric Cinema is spotlighting giallo films this month and has quite a few listed on his main page:
http://www.eccentric-cinema.com/

[Joe the Destroyer]

Thanks!  I'll check 'em out!

[Torgo]

Most of the giallo's that I've seen were done by Bava and Argento.

I've also seen Torso which was pretty decent.

Lots of people consider Don't Torture a Duckling to be Fulci's best movie before he ended up getting stuck in horror movies for the rest of his career. 

[Neville]

Mmmm... I disagree there. "Don't torture a duckling" is certainly Fulci's most conventional film, and he does show some skill here, but I still prefer "The Beyond". Nothing can beat its surreal atmosphere, even if the plot makes little sense.

As for giallos, I haven't seen many, but Bava's "Bay of blood" and Argento's "Deep Red" should be on top of your list. Leave "Bay of blood" to the end, though, it deliberately breaks some giallo rules and watching it in the first place would run part of the fun. And there's this late argento film "Sleepless". Not nearly as good as "Deep Red", but I liked it a lot.

[Torgo]

Mmmm... I disagree there. "Don't torture a duckling" is certainly Fulci's most conventional film, and he does show some skill here, but I still prefer "The Beyond". Nothing can beat its surreal atmosphere, even if the plot makes little sense.

I'm agreement with you about The Beyond being his best film. When I said that he got "stuck in the horror movies", I wasn't meaning as a slam on Fulci.

I agree with you that DTAD is pretty conventional, but I'm always surprised by people who name that as his best film.

[indianasmith]

I watched "Deep Red" the other night.  It was . . . OK.  Maybe I'm just too much of a giallo newbie to know greatness when I see it, or maybe I've seen too much gore in recent films to appreciate how shocking this thing was in 1975, but my overall reaction was . . . meh.

[Joe the Destroyer]

I'm actually going to be picking up the Mario Bava collection vol. 1 when I get some more money.  It won't be for several weeks, but at least I'll have those.  I'll keep an eye out for Deep Red.

[Torgo]

My favorite Mario Bava flick is Twitch of the Death Nerve.   I was amazed at how much the 1st couple of Friday the 13th movies ripped this one off.