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.

Psyched by the 4D Witch

Psyched by the 4D Witch: A Tale of Demonology. Victor Luminera, 1972.

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Edition screened: Included on Something Weird DVD Way-Out Double Feature: Monster a Go-Go and Psyched by the 4D Witch, released 2002. English language. Runtime approximately 81 minutes.


Summary: Inappropriate handling of a snake. 1/5❤


Details: A fantasy hallucination includes two women who sequentially hold a small snake below its head and maneuver it around their torsos in an erotic way, beginning at 39:25. This concludes at 42:35 with the first woman returning and putting the snake’s head in her mouth. Narration at the beginning of the sequence informs us that the snake had been “inside” the woman for eight hours in preparation for the ritual, withdrawn through her anus, then used for the ritual which concludes with biting off the snake’s head. The only portion of that depicted in (blurry, damaged, vintage) film are scenes of the women kneeling while moving the snake across their breasts and stomaches, and then one woman putting the snake’s head in her mouth. 


In addition to the two feature titles, the Something Weird DVD also includes numerous trailers, stills galleries, and three short films with no credits and unknown real titles but identified as:


  • Bedtime Booga Booga: About 5 minutes, color, early 1970s.
    A man dreams of being attacked by murderous zombie clowns and awakens to find that a rubber-masked robber has slit his throat.
  • Psyched by the 2D Dot: About 2 minutes, B&W, mid-1960s.
    A dancer attempts to perform an interpretive dance, but is harassed by an interactive censoring mark on the film.
  • Driving Miss Daisy Crazy: About 36 minutes, B&W, late 1960s.
    A woman seeking help instead is led down a path of drug dependency, abuse, and general bad advice.
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