Am I crazy to think this...

Or is this movie a response to Federico Fellini's 8 1/2? Bear with me here.

Early in Fellini's movie, a character makes reference to having read a really good (sic) Donald Duck story. I have heard that the word "Paperino" is a direct reference to the name the Italians know Donald Duck by, so Fulci's film would more aptly be titled "Don't torture Donald Duck" lol.

At that point in Fellini's film I did not make the connection to Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling, but then came the scene in which Guido recollects a time from his childhood when he and his gang of friends used to go to a place on the beach and give money to a harlot to watch her luridly dance for them, and he gets caught and is punished by the priests of his school, plaguing him with the guilt of sin. The image of the woman-of-ill-repute, who is once referred to as "the devil" by a priest, and a brief scene of a priest playing soccer with a bunch of boys sparked my recollection of Fulci's film. The flashback scene in Fellini's film is directly followed by critique from the theorist who constantly dogs Guido. The critic says that the scene is too nostalgic, that while seeming originally intending to be a criticism of Catholic guilting over sexuality it ends up becoming mired in Guido's own sentimentality and winds up saying nothing critical at all. When you take the thematic (and visual) similarities of Fulci's movie to this passage of 8 1/2, together with the idiosyncratic reference to Donald Duck, it seems to me like Fulci wanted to make a film notably in response to this critic, or even to Fellini's film as a whole, to make a very strong statement unhindered by nostalgia or sentimentality.

I wonder.