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.

Death Curse of Tartu

Death Curse of Tartu. William Grefé, 1966.

😿😿

Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray box set He Came from the Swamp: The William Grefé Collection, released 2020. English language. Runtime approximately 88 minutes.


Summary: Snake abuse.


Details:

1) A very large constrictor is loosely draped in a small tree, about nine feet above the man below. Then cut to the man, as we see the enormous snake obviously thrown at him at 18:56, the snake hitting the man in an awkward fashion resembling neither a drop nor an attack in any way. The man “wrestles” the obviously tame snake through 19:58, rolling around on it with his full weight, maneuvering its head as though he is fending off a bite, and strangling the snake, pushing his thumbs deep into its throat. The poor snake glides off after being released/vanquished. 


2) An average-sized snake is picked up nonchalantly at 20:06 and dropped into a clear polyethylene bag, the typed used for fish at a pet store. The man then knots the end closed with little air in the bag, like he was taught to do with the fish at the pet store (20:17). He walks around his morbid petting zoo setup talking with someone for a while and just puts the bag down at some point.


3) After adding to Orgy of the Dead’s evidence that average-looking girls dancing around in their underwear is not very appealing, one of these girls decides to go for a swim in what appears to be a lake of Chocolate SlimFast. We see the fin of an approaching shark at 44:00, with subsequent thrashing and foamy froth to suggest that she is being attacked. A man on shore is shown shooting into the lake at 45:45, apparently ending the apparent attack.


4) An alligator lumbers along followed by disjointed shooting, shark attack style, at 1:13:50.


This is a terrible movie, and a spoiler here has about as much effect as it would on a Chevy Citation. Interlaced with the animal abuse and underwear dancing are several scenes of  death-defying archaeological adventure, including spooky cobwebs that might get on your face, large stones that must be walked around, treacherous loose gravel, and a decomposing corpse. Turns out, all this mystery is the Death Curse of a Native American and the animal attacks were him. He finally comes back to life in his true form and is wrestled/strangled to defeat just like the snake.


at
Labels: , ,