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.

The Strange World of Coffin Joe

The Strange World of Coffin Joe (O Estranho mundo de Zé do Caixão). José Mojica Marins, 1968.
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Edition screened: Included in Anchor Bay 5-DVD set The Coffin Joe Collection, released 2009. Portuguese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 80 minutes.

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

The Strange World of Coffin Joe is a portmanteau of three short films, The Dollmaker, Obsession, and Theory. Theory is translated as Ideology in the subtitles for this film, won which your excellent non-ungrammar award for movies made in not your country.

The Dollmaker (18 minutes) is a straightforward Tales from the Crypt-style horror narrative. Weak and badly acted, it is the most enjoyable of the three.

Obsession (28 minutes) tests one’s patience. About half of the running time is devoted to several stagnant medium shots of the crippled balloon seller hobbling across a room in a crypt. It is worth noting that Hollis Frampton’s continuous loop of a close-up of a lemon is a compelling viewing experience, while Obsession’s necrophilia, fetishism, and grotesque morgue imagery might challenge even the most easily titillated to remain awake.

Theory (34 minutes) casts director Marins not in his Coffin Joe persona, but as a professor of philosophy who illustrates his thesis by presenting a carnival of sadistic horrors. 

The three shorts are unified somewhat by themes macabre, but more so by shamefully poor subtitle translations and audio tracks so noisy and garbled that even a Portuguese speaker would be doggy paddling. Such spine-tingling deviations from normal communication contribute significantly to the sense of mystery and torture.

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