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.

The Atomic Brain

The Atomic Brain (Monstrosity). Joseph Mascelli and Jack Pollexfen, 1963.

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Edition screened: Included on Something Weird Triple Feature: The Atomic Brain/Love After Death/The Incredible Petrified World DVD, released 2003. English language. Runtime approximately 66 minutes.


Summary: Acceptance and discussion of animal experimentation.


Details: The basic plot is the SciFi staple of exchanging attributes between two bodies, this time financed by an elderly woman who wants to recapture the beauty of youth. A preliminary experiment to swap brain content between a woman and a cat is explained, additionally strange because the scientist intends to use his nice long-haired black house cat. Maybe not so odd, as Doc is confident that everyone will come through this ok, just with a different brain.


We see no experimenting or rough handling of cat or woman. From 57:56 through 58:01 we see a completely different, seemingly taxidermy, black cat draped within a piece of Scientific Equipment that appears to be a discarded acrylic case from the costume jewelry department at Macy’s.


We see the woman with cat brain acting like a cat; catching a mouse (no harm to mouse), up on the roof and can’t get down, etc. . . . and the cat behaving with human agility and comprehension, including some impressive knob spinning and button pushing in the lab to save a human subject.


Intriguing as that all sounds, the cat/woman stuff constitutes a comparatively small amount of Monstrosity’s short run time. The film primarily is a watchable, slightly gothic, social melodrama with a separable backstory of mad scientist - actually more of a punctilious scientist - bogged down with the medical community’s favorite dead-end research.


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