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 Enchanted

The Enchanted. Carter Lord, 1984.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror Volume 2, released 2024. English language. Runtime approximately 90 minutes.


Summary:

The film includes several quick scenes of calves and dogs depicted as dying just after being attacked by a predator. Despite these realistic depictions the director conveys a prevailing care for animals, not just in these scenes but also in the film’s enveloping world view.

Each just-attacked animal is shown lying on its side with the appearance of a bloody wound at its throat. The animals clearly are breathing and panting, presumably tranquilized and cosmetically treated with theatrical effects. Tranquilizing animals for film production is not to be applauded, but the decision and effort to do so in an era when it was common simply to kill the animals is laudable.

The chicken and quails probably were killed, lingering evidence of our stratification of food animals and non-food animals.

The film is set in the Florida everglades and features portentous closeups of woodland animals. Owls, snakes, and squirrels watch the story unfold in montages that make them omniscient audience, jury, and innocents to all they survey. A kitten appears late in the film. She provides an excellent performance in her important role and is not threatened or harmed.


Details:

1) Several quail are shot by a hunter and fall into the brush, 2:05-2:11. The scene is in the style of stock footage and includes no closeups or details.

2) A dead fish is pulled from the river and the hook disengaged, 4:49-5:10.

3) Depiction of a dead calf with a bloody neck wound, as described above, 32:46-32:58.

4) A calf is attacked and killed, 53:18-53:25.

5) A man presents the body of a chicken just decapitated off-screen, 1:04:53, and we see the chicken’s body lying on the floor at 1:05:14.

6) Another dead calf with bloody neck wound, 1:05:54-1:05:57.

7) Dead hunting dogs, depicted in the same way as the calves, 1:11:35-1:11:55.

8) Men shoot at a black wolf, 1:18:19, and we see the dying wolf (also visibly panting) 1:18:44-1:19:00.


The BD also includes Lord’s 1973 short film Swimmer. 


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