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 Cut-Throats

The Cut-Throats. John Hayes, 1969.
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Edition screened: Included in Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray set #235, 5 Films • 5 Years Vol 4: Horror and Exploitation, released 2018; also released in 2015 as DVD #080. English language. Runtime approximately 76 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals. 1.5/5❤

The script for The Cut-Throats contains about one page of dialogue, all of it explaining that a Nazi outpost must be raided. When da ’Throats arrive at this previously mentioned run-down administrative building at a poorly attended state park, it turns out to be a bar-and-brothel where average-looking women provide unerotic massage to Nazi officers, and one cute girl wears clown makeup. The handful of Nazis are killed. The end. There is no aspect of acting, props, story, costumes, or sets that can be recalled five minutes after viewing. Except the clown makeup.

And the cowpoke Jimmy Johnson. 

Trivia Time!   What movie opens with a prolonged still shot of a painting of a cowboy practicing with his lariat, while the mournful song “Ballad of Jimmy Johnson” tells the story of a cowpoke gone to war? 

Need a hint?    The film begins with G.I. Jimmy Johnson practicing with his lariat in a German forest. He encounters a Nazi on the road and is thusly killed four minutes into the movie. 

Give up?   Well, the completely unrelated story of The Cut-Throats then takes over, having no association with or reference to Jimmy Johnson, cowboys, or the Road Nazi scene. The only explanation I can think of is that the production house accidentally burned the titles over incorrect cowboy artwork and music, and it would have cost more to reburn the credits than to shoot the short skit about Jimmy Johnson.
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