Lucio Fulci’s 1972 film is a haunting examination of guilt, innocence, and repression.

[It is] 'The Wicker Man' of Italian exploitation cinema, a relentless deconstruction of fanciful urban illusions about the idyllic joy of getting back to basics: the land, the sky and country folks who haven’t been ruined by the contemporary world.

An important segue into the extreme, stylized violence and rampant misogyny with which he would come to be celebrated and damned, Fulci crafts a surprisingly coherent mystery thriller speckled with several gratuitous displays of carnage.

[Duckling] doesn't hit the surreal heights of later films such as City of the Living Dead or The Beyond, but it's one of the best entries in the director's early filmography.