What’s creepier than a serial killer? How about a serial killer who insists on talking like Donald Duck and making little quacking noises while he slices up women to pulpy shreds? That’s what you get here in this high-sleaze giallo from Lucio Fulci. The killer here is your classic knife-as-phallus lady-snuffer. There’s a sexual edge to all of his murders, which Fulci is happy to show in close-up detail of blades slicing into soft female flesh. Our killer also gets his jollies by phoning the police detective assigned to the case and boasting about his latest conquest in between duck quacks. The plot gets confusing in its last half-hour, but you don’t need to pay much attention to it. The real star of this film is early 80s New York City, portrayed in classic flea-pit form. It’s a place of crumbling police stations, grindhouse theaters, live sex shows in the wee hours and deadly subways. It seems like the natural habitat of a sexually deranged killer duck man.
As usual with Lucio Fulci, several countries banned this over its extreme violence. In the UK, the head of the censor board took a personal interest in seeing that every last print of the film was removed from the country.