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.

Burial Ground

Burial Ground (Le notti del terrore). Andrea Bianchi, 1981.

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Edition screened: 88 Films Blu-ray, released 2016. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 85 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


The Deeper You Dig

The Deeper You Dig. John and Zelda Adams, 2019.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2020. English language. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.


Summary: Recurring hallucinations of dead and dismembered animals.


Details:

1) A disemboweled coyote on the floor of the house, 33:30-33:57.

2) Dismembered animal parts arranged on a desert plate with focus on a mutilated snake, 47:53-48:37.

3) Rear half of a young deer, 55:10-55:16.

4) Partially decomposed crow, 1:06:36-1:06:45

5) A deer is dragged through the woods, 1:18:48 - 1:20:08, with interspersed dialogue.

6) Bloody deer, 1:23:37 - 1:23:42.


The Arrow Blu-ray release also includes The Hatred (John Law, 2018). 


Django Unchained

Django Unchained. Quentin Tarantino, 2012.

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Edition screened: Anchor Bay Blu-ray, released 2013. English language. Runtime approximately 166 minutes.


Summary: Depictions of horses killed.


Details:

1) Depiction of a horse shot in the upper neck and falling dead, 7:45. Over quick and not the camera’s focus, but with graphic splatter effect.

2) Quick pan of recently-butchered chickens, 33:12-33:14.

3) A wagon explodes at 44:45, with inherent death to surrounding horses and riders. No focus on the casualties.

4) Mise-en-scรจne centers on a dead rabbit suspended at the porch of a cabin, 57:15 - 58:02.


The Green Man

The Green Man. Elijah Moshinsky, 1990.

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Edition screened: BBC DVD, released 1990. English language. Cumulative runtime of all three episodes approximately 152 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


Houseboat Horror

Houseboat Horror. Kendal Flanagan and Ollie Martin, 1989.

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Edition screened: Umbrella Entertainment Blu-ray, released 2023. English language. Runtime approximately 85 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.



Incoherence

Incoherence (Ji-ri-myeol-lyeol). Bong Joon-ho, 1994.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray #1073 Memories of Murder, released 2021. Korean language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 31 minutes.


Summary: No animals in the film.


Of the Bong films I have seen, I enjoyed this student film the most by far and not because it is the shortest. Smacks of Haneke.


India Song

India Song. Marguerite Duras, 1975.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray #1172 Two Films by Marguerite Duras, released 2021. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 120 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


The Criterion BD also includes Duras’ Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977).


Inglorious Basterds

Inglorious Basterds. Quentin Tarantino, 2009.

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Edition screened: Universal DVD, released 20098. English language. Runtime approximately 148 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Shane Black, 2005.

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Edition screened: Warner DVD, released 2006. English language. Runtime approximately 103 minutes.


Summary: Implication of a killed spider.


Details: A gag involves an innocuous house spider crawling into a sleeping woman’s bra, 37:00 through 37:40. The spider is not seen again but one leg is found on the woman’s chest.


Lady Morgan’s Vengeance


Lady Morgan’s Vengeance (La vendetta di Lady Morgan). Massimo Pupillo, 1965.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror, released 2022. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 86 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.





Maid in Sweden

Maid in Sweden. Dan Wolman (as Flock Johnson), 1971.

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Edition screened: Kino Lorber Blu-ray, released 2022. English language. Runtime approximately 81 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. 3.5/5


While the overall visual experience is enjoyable due to generous scenes of pre-ruined Stockholm, lovely women, and a curious Beatles poster, the date rape scene and the general behavior of both male characters should be unacceptable to anyone. The film’s mainstream status removes vintage pornography’s comforting filter of absurd play-acting.


Criticism of poor quality of the English overdub is off-base. These are ESL Swedes doing their best speaking English. Perhaps some ADR here and there as with almost any film, but there are no distracting sync issues.



Pusher

Pusher. Nicolas Winding Refn, 1996.

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Edition screened: Included in Magnolia 3-DVD Pusher Trilogy set, 2006. Danish language with spotty English subtitles. Runtime approximately 110 minutes.


Summary: Scene of Zlatko Buric in his kitchen decapitating and otherwise ‘dressing’ already-dead game birds, 41:38-41:50. Often I don’t mention household meat prep of this sort, and this scene is comparatively ho-hum for a decapitation. But the nonchalant violence lets us know how this drug kingpin will handle people who cross him. Kim Bodnia, for example.


The Pusher Trilogy set also includes Refn’s Pusher II (2004) and Pusher III (2005). 


Blurry image of an illuminated backglass in a club scene around 1:01, possibly a 1964 LAI Cosmic Princess.




Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands

Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2004.

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Edition screened: Included in Magnolia 3-DVD Pusher Trilogy set, 2006. Danish language with spotty English subtitles. Runtime approximately 100 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


The Pusher Trilogy set also includes Refn’s Pusher (1996) and Pusher III (2005). 




Pusher III: I’m the Angel of Death

Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2005.

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Edition screened: Included in Magnolia 3-DVD Pusher Trilogy set, 2006. Danish language with spotty English subtitles. Runtime approximately 108 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


The Pusher Trilogy set also includes Refn’s Pusher (1996) and Pusher II (2004). 




A Question of Silence

A Question of Silence (De stilte rond Christine M.). Marleen Gorris, 1982.

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Edition screened: Cult Epics Blu-ray, released 2023. Dutch language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


Triangle of Sadness

Triangle of Sadness. Ruben ร–stlund, 2022.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #1178, released 2023. English language. Runtime approximately 147 minutes.


Summary: Killing of a donkey.


Details:

1) A donkey is clubbed to death with a large rock, 2:04:14-2:05:00, mostly off-screen. We see the donkey’s head pop up from behind bushes once, during the first blow, then we hear him braying in agony as the amateur killer tries to complete the act. The brief view of the donkey’s head looks more like a quaint theater prop rather than a trained live animal.

2) The skinned carcass of the donkey is visible 2:07:21-2:07:31.


The Criterion BD also includes a 15-minute behind-the-scenes short Erik, the Extra (directed by Ludwig Kรคllรฉn) about the filming of the scene in which a passenger is hit with a wave of sewage.


The Wounded Man

The Wounded Man (L’homme blessรฉ). Patrice Chรฉreau, 1983.

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Edition screened: Altered Innocence Blu-ray, released 2023. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 109 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.



The Wild and the Naked

The Wild and the Naked. Stan Roberts, 1962.

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Edition screened: Included on Something Weird DVD Satan in High Heels, released 2001. English language. Runtime approximately 61 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence to animals.


Except for the sequence in which a schizophrenic island derelict leaps down from the trees and ties our shapeless female narrator to the ground, the film consists mostly of small groups of shapeless women repeatedly ‘bathing’ in a muddy river basin.