I'll link this reddit comment that should answer your question.

The tl;dr is that no, Mussolini's government wasn't as bloody as Stalin or Hitler's one.
Of course, it wast still a dictatorship, with a secret police, censorhip and a vague 1984 vibe, political active citizens on the "wrong" side would be fired from their jobs, beaten, exhiled or killed, and Italian's Racial Laws were a thing. But nothing of these persecution was on the same scale with Russia or Germany.
In Italy there were already two other big powers: the king and the pope. They slowed Mussolini's progress toward an absolute dictatorship with a heavy personality cult, and the war did the rest.

Were they really as pathetic as they seem or were they more powerful than that?

If you're talking about prowess and actions in the war, Italy wasn't absolutely ready for it, and that's why it perfomed terribly. They had bad leadership, lacked supplies, mechanized transport and armored support. Mussolini only joined the war because he thought it would end quickly.

When the allies reached Italy, Italians were already tired of Mussolini and his war, so the king took the opportunity to get rid of him and switch to the winning side.

For the record, "Fascism" literally describes the form of political ideology/political tactics created by Mussolini's movement in Italy. Mussolini's movement coined the word "fascist" and so Mussolini is technically the most fascist of all leaders as the fascist movement originated with him and spread to other countries.

Stalin on the other hand would not be fascist at all, his government was totalitarian in a similar way that the Italian and German governments were, but as a Marxist he was diametrically opposed to fascists, who tended to view Marxists as their biggest enemies.

Just to clarify your question, are you asking if Mussolini's government was fascist or not?

What about Franco's government? Was it as bloody or was it closer to the Italian model?