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.

Nekromantik 2

Nekromantik 2. Jörg Buttgereit, 1991.
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Edition screened: Included in the Cult Epic 4-Blu-ray set Sex Murder Art: The Films of Jörg Buttgereit, released 2016. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 103 minutes.

Summary: Seal dissection.

Details: Explicit scenes of a seal dissection are intercut with the movie narrative, 1:20:33-1:28:38.

You can easily skip the seal dissection sequence, as follows:

We first see seals swimming happily in a zoo-like environment. Turn it off any time in this sequence and skip ahead to 1:28:38.  Here is what happens in the plot during your skip, intercut with the dissection scenes: Monika and some female friends are watching the seal video at Monika’s apartment. We see Mark preparing to go out, then arriving unexpected at Monika’s apartment with a pizza. The girls quickly turn their video off, hide other evidence of their perverse interests, and leave as soon as Mark sits down. Mark pressures Monika to show him what they were watching. Upon seeing part of the video Mark is angry and disgusted and leaves . . .  Now resume watching around 1:28:38, as Monika calls Mark the next day to make up and invite him over.

The Nekromantik 2 disc in the Cult Epic box set also includes the short film A Moment of Silence at the Grave of Ed Gein (2012).

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