Heads Up, Ears Down

This blog accurately identifies depictions of violence and cruelty toward animals in films. The purpose is to provide viewers with a reliable guide so that such depictions do not come as unwelcome surprises. Films will be accurately notated, providing a time cue for each incident along with a concise description of the scene and perhaps relevant context surrounding the incident. In order to serve as a useful reference tool, films having no depictions of violence to animals will be included, with an indication that there are no such scenes. This is confirmation that the films have been watched with the stated purpose in mind.


Note that the word depictions figures prominently in the objective. It is a travesty that discussions about cruelty in film usually are derailed by the largely unrelated assertion that no animals really were hurt (true only in some films, dependent upon many factors), and that all this concern is just over a simulation. Not the point, whether true or false. We do not smugly dismiss depictions of five-year-olds being raped because those scenes are only simulations. No, we are appalled that such images are even staged, and we are appropriately horrified that the notion now has been planted into the minds of the weak and cruel.


Depictions of violence or harm to animals are assessed in keeping with our dominant culture, with physical abuse, harmful neglect, and similar mistreatment serving as a base line. This blog does not address extended issues of animal welfare, and as such does not identify scenes of people eating meat or mules pulling plows. The goal is to itemize images that might cause a disturbance in a compassionate household.


These notes provide a heads-up but do not necessarily discourage watching a film because of depicted cruelty. Consuming a piece of art does not make you a supporter of the ideas presented. Your ethical self is created by your public rhetoric and your private actions, not by your willingness to sit through a filmed act of violence.

Beauty and the Beast (Herz)

Beauty and the Beast (Panna a netvor). Juraj Herz, 1978.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror Volume 2, released 2024. Czech  language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 91 minutes.


Summary: Livestock slaughter and horses in distress.


Details:

1) At 6:04 — Be alert for this unexpected cut to a chicken being grasped and slaughtered, followed by a goat having its throat slit, a squealing pig dragged away by its ears, and the disgusting disembowelment of a hanging carcass - all through 6:26.  General cutting of meat, plucking of feathers, and similar through 7:23.

2) Horses in distress as they are stranded on a muddy cliff with flames erupting around them, 13:43-14:10.

3) A horse has died and lies on its side, 20:37-20:47.

4) The Beast on horseback runs down a doe, pursuing it through a lake, back onto land, and trampling it several times, 45:00-45:42.


Beauty and the Beast shares Disc #8 in the Severin set with the short Frantisek Hrubín (1964 Tomás Skrdlant) Herz’s The Ninth Heart (1979).


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Becoming Led Zeppelin

Becoming Led Zeppelin. Bernard MacMahon, 2025.

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Edition screened: Watched online. English language. Runtime approximately 122 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

 A Big Bold Beautiful Journey. Kogonada, 2025.

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Edition screened: Watched online. English language. Runtime approximately 109 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Body Fever

Body Fever. Ray Dennis Steckler, 1969.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set The Incredibly Strange Films of Ray Dennis Steckler, released 2022. English language. Runtime approximately 78 minutes.


Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.


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Fountain of Youth

Fountain of Youth. Guy Ritchie, 2025.

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Edition screened: Watched online. English language. Runtime approximately 125 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Furies Sexuelles / Prostitution Clandestine

Furies Sexuelles (Les Marie-Madeleine)/Prostitution Clandestine. Alain Payet, 1976.

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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #Peek-005, released 2021. French language with English subtitles. Combined runtimes approximately 210 minutes.


Summary: No violence to animals in either film.



• Furies Sexuelles (1976, approximately 106 minutes) 4/5❤


• Prostitution Clandestine (1975, approximately 104 minutes) 2.5/5❤


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M3GAN (Megan)

M3GAN (Megan). Gerard Johnstone, 2022.

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Edition screened: Watched online. English language. Runtime approximately 102 minutes.


Summary: Implied killing of a dog.


Details: Megan lures the badly-behaved dog next door to put its head through a hole in the fence, so we only see the dog from the neck down. At 37:45 Megan (presumably) grabs the dog by the head on the other side of the fence and drags him through. The dog’s disappearance and presumed murder gets some attention later in the movie.



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Presumed Innocent (Kelley)

Presumed Innocent (Apple TV series). David E. Kelley, 2024.

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Edition screened: Watched online. English language. Nine episodes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Sister Emanuelle

Sister Emanuelle (Suor Emanuelle). Giuseppe Vari, 1977.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle, released 2023. English language. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals. 3/5❤


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Scales

Scales (Sayyedat al-Bahr). Shahad Ameen, 2020.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror Volume 2, released 2024. Arabic language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 76 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


Scales is a beautiful and entrancing film. The drama is persistent but not taxing, every performance calmly likable, and the cinematography inventive without disturbing the serenity of the viewing experience. Highly recommended.



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Red Beard

Red Beard (Akahige). Akira Kurosawa, 1965.

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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #159, released 2002. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 185 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


Red Beard is a fitting sayōnara to a successful run of Hollywood-style Kurosawa films starring Toshirô Mifune. In a large supporting role rather than starring as the lead, Mifune masterfully portrays a 2010 Robert De Nero portraying a mid-1960s Mifune who plays a young doctor of the late Tokugawa shogunate.


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The Present (Hsieh)

The Present. Hsieh Wen-Ming, 2013.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror Volume 2, released 2024. Taiwanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 15 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


The effectively spooky animated short The Present accompanies and surpasses the feature film Io Island in the Severin box set.


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Nang Nak

Nang Nak. Nonzee Nimibutr, 1999.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror Volume 2, released 2024. Thai language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 101 minutes.


Summary: Brief fishing violence and dead rats.


Details:

1) A fish is speared in a river, 39:32.

2) Dead rats float in the water, 57:41.


Nang Nak is accompanied by an interview with the director (2024, produced by Kier-La Janisse) “Love and Impermanence: Nang Nak and the Rebirth of Thai Cinema.”



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Mother (Albert Brooks)

Mother. Albert Brooks, 1996.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #1232, released 2024. English language. Runtime approximately 104 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Man-Eater Mountain ‘Hitokui Yama’

Man-Eater Mountain ‘Hitokui Yama’ . Naoyuki Niiya, 2010.

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Edition screened: Included with Bakeneko: A Vengeful Spirit in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror Volume 2, released 2024. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 28 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


An animated comedy horror.


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Kindil El Bahr

Kindil El Bahr. Damien Ounouri, 2016.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror Volume 2, released 2024. Arabic language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 41 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


Despite its short run time, Kindil El Bahr tells an interesting variation on rape/revenge stories by combining the woman’s wrath with older dangers of the ocean. It accompanies the feature film Scales.

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The History of Pinball

The History of Pinball. Mark Helms, 1997.

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Edition screened: Watched online. English language. Runtime approximately 61 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


The emphasis here is on history rather than enumerations of favorites, top sellers, or designer. The script begins with 18th-century table-top bagatelle games then chronologically documents the emergence of pins, plunger, bumpers, flippers, electromechanics, and the other toys that make a modern pinball machine.


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