Violence to Animals in Film: January 2025

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.

Martial Arts of Shaolin

Martial Arts of Shaolin (Nan bei Shao Lin). Liu Chia-Liang, 1986.

😿 😿 😿

Edition screened: Included in the Arrow Blu-ray box set Shawscope: Volume Two, released 2022. Mandarin language. Runtime approximately 94 minutes.

Summary: A living harmless snake is fastened to a thin tree branch by looping its neck around the branch and tying a knot with its body. It then is pulled taught, skinned alive, the body whacked from the head, hacked into pieces and cooked on a sizzling hot stone. Hokey Smokes. 16:52 - 17:26.

The film opens with an ethically irreconcilable scene in which two young Shaolin students save a nest of baby birds. They then get worms to feed the pre-fledglings and are interrupted by a senior monk who ruins Happy Baby Bird Time by asking if the birds’ lives are more important than the life of the worms?

Funky Forest: The First Contact

Funky Forest: The First Contact (Naisu no mori). Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine, & Shunichirô Miki, 2005.

😸

Edition screened: Third Window Blu-ray, released 2022. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 150 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. Several small malicious fantasy creatures are handled roughly.

The Films of Doris Wishman: The Moonlight Years

The Films of Doris Wishman: The Moonlight Years. 1965-1969.

😸

Edition screened: AGFA, released 2022. English language. Combined runtime of feature films approximately 632 minutes.

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

Click on individual titles for additional information:

Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965)

The Sex Perils of Paulette (1965)

Another Day, Another Man (1966)

My Brother’s Wife (1966)

The Hot Month of August (1966)

A Taste of Flesh (1967)

Indecent Desires (1968)

Too Much Too Often (1968)

Passion Fever (1969)

The Family Stone

The Family Stone. Thomas Bezucha, 2005.

😸

Edition screened: 20th Century DVD, released 2006. English language. Runtime approximately 103 minutes.

No animals or references to animals in the film.

Dune: Part Two

Dune: Part Two. Denis Villeneuve, 2024.

😸

Edition screened: Included in Warner Dune 2-Film Collection 4K Blu-ray set, released 2004. English language. Runtime approximately 166 minutes.

Summary: Birds are incinerated in a small cave and fall to the ground charred and dead starting at 1:49:34, with recurring images during other action through 1:50:47.

Dune (Villeneuve)

Dune. Denis Villeneuve, 2021.

😸

Edition screened: Included in Warner Dune 2-Film Collection 4K Blu-ray set, released 2004. English language. Runtime approximately 155 minutes.

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

Carol

Carol. Todd Haynes, 2016.

😸

Edition screened: Lionsgate Blu-ray, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 118 minutes.

Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.

Savage Sadists/Den of Dominance/Daughters of Discipline.

Savage Sadists/Den of Dominance/Daughters of Discipline. Phil Prince, 1983.

😸

Edition screened: Included on Vinegar Syndrome Avon Triple Feature DVD #086, released 2015. English language. Cumulative runtime approximately 117 minutes.

Summary: No animals or references to animals in the films. 1/5❤

Vinegar Syndrome’s Avon Triple Feature demonstrates thrice that a 40-minute film can be scripted, cast, and produced in 50 minutes:

Savage Sadists. 1983, Phil Price. Approximately 38 minutes. 0.05/5❤

Den of Dominance. 1983, Phil Price. Approximately 37 minutes. 1/5❤

Daughters of Discipline. 1983, Phil Price. Approximately 42 minutes. 1/5❤

Violence to Animals in Film