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.

Memorial Valley Massacre

Memorial Valley Massacre (Memorial Day). Robert C. Hughes, 1989.

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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #332, released 2020. English language. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.


Summary: Dead dog, brutal killing of snakes.


Details:

1) A dead German shepherd is pulled up from a well and dumped on the ground, seen 3:13-3:26 and again 4:24-4:34 with dialogue between.

2) A standoff between a man and a Doberman pinscher resolves off screen as we hear the dog’s death whine, 10:10-10:12

3) A picnic table is seen covered with snakes at 15:02. Beginning at 15:07 and continuing through 15:25, the snakes are beaten with a shovel, sprayed with a fire extinguisher, then beaten with the shovel again. This all appears to be very real.

4) ðŸ˜¸The young rabbit caught in a snare at 21:30 is turned loose unharmed, and the mouse seen soon thereafter is treated kindly.


Memorial Valley Massacre has the common and simple structure of first introducing an array of unlikable characters and then killing them off, this time at a campground. One could simply skip the first 16 minutes of the film which contains all the animal violence, and miss only the meet-and-greet of loathsome characters. 


If a viewer took such an approach, I would point out that these opening minutes also expose the soon-to-be-dispatched as undeserving of their visit to any beautiful wooded area. They throw beer cans everywhere, destroy small trees unnecessarily, and care exclusively about their cars and crap. The mangling of saplings, 8:09-8:26, is upsetting in a way similar to animal abuse.


These details are important because the plot and logic of the film quickly expose that only characters who are cruel to the natural world are killed.


MVM is an odd movie. We are happy to see the unlikeable people dispatched in this film as in most slasher-type films, and I certainly have seen quite my share of “revenge of nature” plots. But with the obvious exception of the horrific snake killing, MVM left me with a genuine Feel Good contentedness, a fictionalized confirmation - a hope, perhaps - that such people do get what they deserve. Perhaps because of my personal ethical stance and the disheartening politics of the summer of 2020, I rather enjoyed this positive revenge story and did not hate the movie nearly as much as most viewers are eager to state.


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