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.

La Haine

La Haine (Hate). Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #381, released 2012. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 97 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
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Hammer Horror: 8-Film Collection

Hammer Horror: 8-Film Collection. Terence Fisher, Peter Graham Scott, Freddie Francis, and Don Sharp, 1960-1964.
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Edition screened: Universal Blu-ray set, released 2016. English language. Cumulative runtime approximately 686 minutes.

Summary: Some films contain images of violence to animals. Click on individual titles for details.

This very good 4-Blu-ray set include the following horror classics from the Hammer studios:

Paranoiac!, 1962
Nightmare, 1963


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Hangs Upon Nothing

Hangs Upon Nothing. Jeremy Rumas, 2014.
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Edition screened: Etiquette Pictures Blu-ray, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 80 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

An enjoyable surf film, calm, nicely made and with pleasant original music by the young director’s band. Includes good documentation of contemporary life in a coastal Bali town.
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Harlot/Tijuana Blue

Harlot/Tijuana Blue. Howard Ziehm, 1970-1971.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome DVD #119 Peekarama: Harlot/Tijuana Blue, released 2016. English language. Cumulative runtime approximately 156 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals in either feature.

Harlot (co-directed with Michael Benveniste), 1970, approximately 64 minutes. 3/5❤
Tijuana Blue, 1971, approximately 92 minutes. 3/5❤
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The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight. Quentin Tarantino, 2015.
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Edition screened: Anchor Bay Blu-ray, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 168 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. Some background chicken plucking, but it is not emphasized.


Bonus Points!  . . . An orange cat sits prominently on a stool immediately before a massive slaughter, but is not pointlessly killed as most directors would have scripted. 
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The Headless Woman

The Headless Woman (La mujer sin cabeza). Lucrecia Martel, 2008.
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Edition screened: Strand DVD, released 2009. Spanish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 87 minutes.

Summary: Animals dead from car accidents.

Details:
1) A distant and indistinct view of a dog that has been hit by a car, 6:15-6:21.
2) A man carries a dead deer, slung in a sheet, into the house and puts it on the kitchen counter, 20:02-20:26.  A slightly more explicit view of the dead deer, 22:25-23:12.
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The Hearse

The Hearse. George Bowers, 1980.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #166, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 99 minutes.


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

Heartless (Outlaw: Heartless / Burai hijô ). Mio Ezaki, 1968.
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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray box set Outlaw Gangster VIP: The Complete Collection released 2016. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

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The Heisters

The Heisters. Tobe Hooper, 1965.
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Edition screened: Included on Arrow Blu-ray set The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, released 2013. Scored, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 10 minutes.


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

Hellbent. Richard Casey, 1988.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #135, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 88 minutes.


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

Henry. Lindsay Anderson, 1955.
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Edition screened: Included in the BFI 4-DVD set Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-War Britain 1951-1977, released 2013. English language. Runtime approximately 5 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

A child welfare short containing wonderful scenes of 1950s London at night.


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Here Is Your Life

Here Is Your Life (Här har du ditt liv). Jan Troell, 1966.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #766, released 2015. Swedish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 168 minutes.

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

The Criterion release also includes Troell’s superb short film Interlude in the Marshland (1965).
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Heroic Purgatory

Heroic Purgatory (Rengoku eroica). Yoshishige (Kijû) Yoshida, 1970.
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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray box set Love + Anarchism, released 2015. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 210 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
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Herzog: The Collection

Herzog: The Collection. Werner Herzog, 1970-1999.
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Edition screened: Shout! Factory 13-Blu-ray set, released 2014. English and German language with English subtitles. Runtime of features approximately 1526 minutes.

The set includes numerous period documentaries and other supplements, and the following feature films, many of which contain some real violence to animals:

Fata Morgana (1970)
Stroszek (1977)
Woyzeck (1979)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Cobra Verde (1987)
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High-Rise

High-Rise. Ben Wheatley, 2015.
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Edition screened: StudioCanal Blu-ray, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 119 minutes.

Summary: Dogs killed.

Details:
1) A dog is intentionally drowned in a swimming pool, 47:08-47:28. The portrayal is highly stylized and a child or inattentive viewer might not perceive the action.
2) The dog is shown dead beside the pool, 49:36-49:38.
3) A dog has been beaten, and is shown injured but happy and OK in an elevator 1:07:09.
4) At the dinner scene at the end of the film, there is the implication that the steaks are dog meat.

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The Hills Have Eyes (Aja)

The Hills Have Eyes. Alexandre Aja, 2006.
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Edition screened: 20th Century Fox ‘Unrated’ Blu-ray, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 108 minutes.

Summary: Numerous animal murders.

Details:
1) A fish struggles after being dumped in the desert dirt, 2:07-2:08.
2) A lizard is dismembered by spikes, 19:45-19:47.
3) A German Shepherd is heard yelping around 31:50, then found murdered, 33:00-33:27.
4) The German Shepherd is found by her mate, 47:53-47:58.
5) One of two lovebirds is removed from a cage, murdered graphically by a man and partially eaten, 54:56-55:18. The cage containing the other bird is later smashed to the floor.
6) The second German Shepherd is hit/injured in a fight, 1:25:30-1:25:39, but returns battle-ready and victorious.
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The Hills Have Eyes (Craven)

The Hills Have Eyes. Wes Craven, 1977.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 99 minutes.

Summary: Murder of animals.

Details:
1) A non-threatening tarantula is smashed off-screen amid shrieking and stomping, 15:33-15:37.
2) A German Shepherd is found disemboweled, 22:46-22:48.
3) A finch is removed from his cage and killed gruesomely, 51:20-51:34.
4) A second German Shepherd yelps when it is shot at, 1:15:54, but comes back to attack Michael Berryman.


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Hired to Kill

Hired to Kill. Nico Mastorakis and Peter Rader, 1990.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.


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

Hobgoblins. Rick Sloan, 1987.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #140, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 88 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals. Not even the dispatching of the Hobgoblins themselves is particularly violent. Or sensible.


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The Honeymoon Killers

The Honeymoon Killers. Leonard Kastle, 1969.
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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #200, released 2003. English language. Runtime approximately 107 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
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Hole in the Soul

Hole in the Soul (Rupa u dusi). Dušan Makavejev, 1994.
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Edition screened: Included on Criterion DVD #389 WR: Mysteries of the Organism, released 2007. English and Serbo-Croatian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 50 minutes.

Summary: Piglet carcasses being sold at public market (32:06-32:27) is brief and unsensationalistic, but a turn-off in this engaging, enjoyable film.

Hole in the Soul is the sort of film typically made by Chris Marker or Agnès Varda, a witty romp through a regional pocket of politics and culture structured as reminiscing autobiography. 
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Horns

Horns. Alexandre Aja, 2013.
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Edition screened: Anchor Bay Blu-ray, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 120 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

1980 Stern Galaxy in the wood shed,  then bar scenes show a 1983 Bally Grand Slam, a 1980 Stern Big Game, and a 1980 Bally Silverball Mania.



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Horror Heaven

Horror Heaven (JB’s Horror Heaven). Jörg Buttgereit, 1984.
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Edition screened: Included on the Schramm Blu-ray in the Cult Epic box set Sex Murder Art: The Films of Jörg Buttgereit, released 2016. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 23 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Horror Heaven is one of the best “comedy horror” films I’ve seen. Films down-graded to Comedy Horror category usually are a mediation of failure between filmmaker and audience. A genuine horror film of quality is a difficult thing to make and a complicated thing to watch. Most directors address their inability to do so by instead making a film where things jump out from around corners and startle the audience; or a film with copious blood spurting to make the audience say ewwww; or most commonly, a film combining some of both of those tacts and also filled with stupid gags and jokes, thus allowing director and audience to conspire, relax, in the embarrassed apologetic lie of “comic relief.”

Horror Heaven is quietly clever, inevitably a better goal than “funny.” It summarizes a handful of classic horror films with a creative and unembarrassed attitude appropriate to a gifted beginning director. It is not a stellar film but is set far apart from most marriages of comedy and horror in not being completely atrocious.

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Horror House on Highway 5

Horror House on Highway 5. Richard Casey, 1985.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #135, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 88 minutes.

Summary: Murdered cat.

Details: The formulaic cheap move: a dead cat is discovered as some vague warning of some sort. This time, a bloody white cat found in a van at 33:40, then taken to a trash can through 34:08.

Low-budget Horror House on Highway 5 was director Casey’s first film and is surprisingly good and creative. The predictable, unfortunate inclusion of the formulaic murdered cat is the low point and brings the whole production down a level in creativity and respectability. 

One very noticeable success of the film is Casey’s use of humor. Horror House was made around the time that pop horror movies become infested with stupid pushy jokes that make them almost unwatchable. The Mutilator, for example. Casey’s quick silly bits of humor are well acted and actually made me smile, as opposed to the endless barrage of overly-written juvenile jokes that make me want to turn off many similar films.
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Hospitals Don’t Burn Down

Hospitals Don’t Burn Down. Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1978.
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Edition screened: Included on Arrow Blu-ray Dead End Drive-In, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 24 minutes.


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

Hostel Part II. Eli Roth, 2007.
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Edition screened: Included on Mill Creek Hostel/Hostel Part II Double Feature Blu-ray, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Hostel

Hostel. Eli Roth, 2005.
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Edition screened: Included on Mill Creek Hostel/Hostel Part II Double Feature Blu-ray, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 94 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
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Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls

Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls. Bob Chinn, 1978.
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Edition screened: Included in Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray set #201, 5 Films • 5 Years Vol 1: Golden Age Erotica, released 2018; also released in 2014 as DVD #055. English language. Runtime approximately 68 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals. 4/5❤









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Hot Flashes

Hot Flashes. Leonard Kirtman (as Leon Gucci), 1984.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome DVD #165, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 76 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals. 0/5❤


Ugh. Erotic comedy must be the result of a contest to develop a type of film less appealing that horror comedy.
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Hot Fuzz

Hot Fuzz. Edgar Wright, 2007.
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Edition screened: Included in The World’s End/Hot Fuzz/Shaun of the Dead 3-Pack, released 2013. English language. Runtime approximately 121 minutes.


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

Hot Love. Jörg Buttgereit, 1985.
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Edition screened: Included on the Necromantik Blu-ray in the Cult Epic box set Sex Murder Art: The Films of Jörg Buttgereit, released 2016. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 29 minutes.


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

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