Backwoods. Ryan Mackfall, 2018.
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Edition screened: Included with Eyes of Fire (Disc 2) in the Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 14 minutes.
Summary: A dead sheep, 13:41-13:44.
A beautifully made but somewhat impenetrable telling of Lovecraft’s The Picture in the House (1920).
The Big Lebowski. Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998.
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Edition screened: Universal UHD, released 2018. English language. Runtime approximately 118 minutes.
Summary: Ferret dropped into a bathtub.
Details: A ferret is dropped into the tub while Jeff Bridges is bathing. The animal is depicted as thrashing around violently for quite a while, 55:35- 55:53. Bridges calls it a marmot, but it is a ferret.
Crying Blue Sky. Avery Crounse, 1983.
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Edition screened: Included with Eyes of Fire (Disc 2) in the Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 108 minutes.
Summary: Bloody cow head.
Details:
1) A man jumps menacingly from tall grass wearing a partial cow carcass, 1:16:19, then runs off. The gory head of a recently killed cow is found, 1:16:35-1:16:38, then viewed again 1:17:17-1:17:19.
2) Travelers pass a small rabbit impaled on a tree branch, 1:26:33-1:26:37. Filmed from an odd angle, not explicit, and somewhat uncertain. It looks like a little girl’s fur muff caught in a shrub.
Crying Blue Sky, the original version of Eyes of Fire, was cut by about 22 minutes for release; a pity as the longer version elevates a very good film to excellent. The shorter Eyes of Fire is missing not only numerous short scenes that make the film more easily understood, but also missing some scenes with the best acting and dialogue and an attractive psychedelic passage around the 65-minute mark.
Death Has Blue Eyes (To koritsi vomva/The Para Psychics). Nico Mastorakis, 1976.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2021. English dub. Runtime approximately 80 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (Wu Lang ba gua gun). Lau Kar-Leung, 1984.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2022. Cantonese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 98 minutes.
Summary: A hunter tosses a bundle of small game on a table, but there are no detail shots or gruesome images.
Eyes of Fire. Avery Crounse, 1983.
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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 86 minutes.
Summary: Bloody cow head.
Details:
1) A man jumps menacingly from tall grass wearing a partial cow carcass, 1:02:05, then runs off. The gory head of a recently killed cow is found, 1:02:17-1:02:21.
2) Travelers pass a small rabbit impaled on a tree branch, 1:06:55-1:07:00. This is filmed from an odd angle, not explicit, and somewhat uncertain. It looks like a little girl’s fur muff caught in a shrub.
The Eyes of Fire BD in the Severin box set also includes the 108-minute version of Crounse’s film titled Crying Blue Sky (recommended!), as well as:
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1972 Sam Weiss)
Transformations (1972 Barbara Hirschfeld)
Backwoods (2018 Ryan Mackfall)
The Female (Seventy Times Seven / Setenta veces siete). Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, 1962.
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Edition Screened: Included on Something Weird “Sizzling Latin Double Feature” DVD Fuego/The Female, released 2002. English overdub. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
The Female seems considered a dismissible throw-away, bundled with the more crowd-pleasing Fuego. Fuego is campy fun but has no substantial merit beyond its visual content. The Female, conversely, holds its own as a well-written tale of a woman’s impulsive and imperiling decisions. We see her shifting allegiance with impoverished, desperate folks in the Tex-Mex desert, intercut with vignettes of her later life in a rough Mexican brothel. The people she knew in the desert were depicted as potentially violent or even lethal, but never harmed or threatened her. Only after she betrayed them all does she find an abusive environment in the disreputable brothel.
Fuego. Armando Bรณ, 1969.
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Edition screened: Included on Something Weird “Sizzling Latin Double Feature” DVD Fuego/The Female, released 2002. English overdub. Runtime approximately 84 minutes.
Summary: A lot of fur coat, but no depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Horrors of Malformed Men (Kyรดfu kikei ningen: Edogawa Rampo zenshรป). Teruo Ishii, 1969.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2018. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 99 minutes.
Summary: Real killing of a snake.
Details: Two legitimately dangerous-looking poisonous snakes ogle a woman in a shower. Teruo Yoshida beats probably nothing on the floor for a while (off-screen), but then 41:12-41:15 we see one of snakes being clubbed to death with a wooden mallet.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Sam Weiss, 1972.
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Edition screened: Included with Eyes of Fire (Disc 2) in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 13 minutes.
I enjoyed this short animation of the Washington Irving tale, especially as a comparative piece to Disney’s well-known 1949 version. I liked the animation style here but did miss that great song performed by Bing Crosby about The Headless Horseman.
Leptirica (The She-Butterfly). ฤorฤe Kadijeviฤ, 1973.
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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. Serbian with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 65 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
The Leptirica BD in the box set also includes two other films by Kadijeviฤ, ล tiฤenik and Deviฤanska Svirka, both 1973.
Mother Night. Keith Gordon, 1996.
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Edition screened: New Line DVD, released 2000. English language. Runtime approximately 113 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
One Pair of Eyes: Alan Garner. Lawrence Moore, 1972.
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Edition screened: Included on BFI DVD Red Shift, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 40 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
An adventurous portrait of Red Shift’s author in which Garner sensibly assembles time, communication, energy, and impermanence so that these concepts make more sense collectively than they muster independently. Garner’s sensitive articulation of morality, art, and humanity can be life-changing.
Penda’s Fen. Alan Clarke, 1974.
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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 90 minutes.
Summary: A young bird is smashed.
Details: A nestling is huddled in front of a truck tire. We see the truck pull out, obviously killing the bird off screen. The camera returns for a graphic closeup of the smashed young bird, 34:55-35:00.
The Panda’s Fen BD in the Severin box set also includes:
The Pledge (1981 Digby Rumsey)
Robin Redbreast (1970 James MacTaggart)
The Sermon (2018 Dean Puckett)
The Pledge. Digby Rumsey, 1981.
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Edition screened: Included with Penda’s Fen (Disc 12) in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 22 minutes.
Summary: Dead sheep.
Details: A sheep lies on the ground dead, 6:52-6:55.
Red Shift. John Mackenzie, 1978.
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Edition screened: BFI DVD, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 84 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
This superb adaptation of Alan Garner’s novel by the same title was made for BBC’s “Play for Today” series. The BFI release also includes an inspiring video portrait of the author One Pair of Eyes: Alan Garner, and the entertaining short film Spirit of Cheshire.
Robin Redbreast. James MacTaggart, 1970.
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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 76 minutes.
Summary: Displays of dead rabbits in a church.
Details: An autumnal church service includes displays of “the bounties of the land,” beginning with piles of vegetables then transitioning to dead pheasants and mostly rabbits, 39:25-39:40.
The Robin Redbreast BD in the Severin box set also includes:
Penda’s Fen (1974 Alan Clarke)
The Pledge (1981 Digby Rumsey)
The Sermon (2018 Dean Puckett)
Russian Lolita (Russkaya Lolita). Armen Oganezov, 2007.
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Edition screened: On line. Russian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.
Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.
The Sermon. Dean Puckett, 2018.
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Edition screened: Included with Robin Redbreast (Disc 12) in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 12 minutes.
Summary: No animals in the film.
Spirit of Cheshire. Kevin Marshland, 1980.
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Edition screened: Included on BFI DVD Red Shift, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 20 minutes.
Summary: No animals in the film.
A group of historic Rolls-Royce automobiles lead an enjoyable tour around historic Cheshire.
ล tiฤenik (The Ward). ฤorฤe Kadijeviฤ, 1973.
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Edition screened: Included with Leptirica (Disc 3) in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 45 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Sushi Girl. Kern Saxton, 2012.
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Edition screened: Magnet Blu-ray, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 99 minutes.
Summary: Sushi preparation.
Details: Close-up of the sushi chef decapitating a small (already dead) fish, 3:48.
Transformations. Barbara Hirschfeld, 1972.
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Edition screened: Included with Eyes of Fire (Disc 2) in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. Scored, no dialogues. Runtime approximately 9 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
True Romance. Tony Scott, 1993.
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Edition screened: Arrow UHD, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 121 minutes.
Summary: Several aquariums are smashed during the fight at Gary Oldman’s place, but there are no depictions of fish stranded or dying.
Virtual Encounters. Cybil Richards, 1996.
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Edition screened: Full Moon DVD, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 84 minutes.
Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film. 1.5/5❤
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Edition screened: Included on Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. Mostly English, with other languages and English subtitles. Runtime approximately 192 minutes.
Summary: This overview of international folk horror includes innumerable short clips and commentary from films both included and excluded from the accompanying anthology. Some clips that include animal violence:
1) Brief image of a dead rabbit in a coffin, 6:53.
2) A wolf is decapitated with flying head shenanigans, 52:01-52:10.
3) Church interior with dead game displayed including dried blood around the mouths of rabbits, 1:03:25-1:03:40.
4) Quick image of one dead sheep, no blood, 1:25:13-1:25:15.
5) Pedestrians carry a dead bird and a bloated frog, 1:34:05-1:34:23.
6) Disturbing images of sacrificed animals from The Believers, 1:52:46-1:53:07.
7) A man carries a dead kangaroo, 2:01:31-2:01:37.
8) Mutilated animals found, 3:02:13-3:02:24
9) A woman eats a worm, 3:03:00-3:03:07.
