Violence to Animals in Film: October 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.

The Thrill Killers

The Thrill Killers. Ray Dennis Steckler, 1965.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set The Incredibly Strange Films of Ray Dennis Steckler, released 2002. English language. Runtime approximately 70 minutes.

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

The Severin release also includes the re-release cut of The Thrill Killers called The Maniacs Are Loose! Skip it. It’s the complete original film prefaced with a staggeringly boring six-minute introduction by real hypnotist Ormond McGill. McGill encourages the audience to submit to voluntary hypnosis which will allow them to see real maniacs rampaging in the theatre when cued by a swirling disc graphic cut into the film. He slowly explains this process about four times. Indeed, the swirling disc is inserted into the film for a few seconds during crescendos of violence. This re-release tour of re-titled The Thrill Killers featured actors running in the theatre isles with prop weapons during Swirly Disc Time, a stunt Steckler employed for other films that had worn out their welcomes.

Sleep (Venus)

Sleep (Schlaf). Michael Venus, 2020.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2021. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 102 minutes.

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

Details: When Mona first comes to the village of Stainbach she encounters Lore in a shed cutting a piece of meat from a suspended carcass. This two-second act is not bloody, alarming or the focus of the scene.

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals. Joe D’Amato, 1977.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle, released 2023. English language with original Italian as an option. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.

Summary: A constrictor drops from a branch and wraps around Laura Gemser, followed at 34:22 by a one-second close-up of the snake being shot. 2/5❤

Edge of the Knife

Edge of the Knife (SGaawaay K'uuna). Gwaai Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown, 2018.

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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. Haida language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 101 minutes.

Summary: The film includes several scenes in which ocean fish, freshly caught but dead, are cut by the skilled hands of 19th-century Pacific Canadian native people. There is no beheading, gutting or other intentionally disgusting details.

Edge of the Knife is a captivating story that weaves realistic social drama with tribal mythology. It is the first feature film in the Haida language, which survives with only a few dozen native speakers.

The culturally sympathetic films Haida Carver (1964) and Nalujuk Night (2021) are included on the disc.

Born of Fire

Born of Fire. Jamil Dehlavi, 1987.

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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 84 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence to animals.

The Born of fire BD in the box set also features Dehlavi’s 1975 Towers of Silence and 1985 Qâf.

3 from Hell

3 from Hell. Rob Zombie, 2019.

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Edition screened: Included in Lionsgate Rob Zombie Trilogy Blu-ray set, released 2020. English language. Runtime approximately 115 minutes.

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

I enjoyed the previous two associated titles but was disappointed by 3 from Hell.

The Rob Zombie Trilogy also includes House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects, each on an individual Blu-ray. You might enjoy clicking those links.

Violence to Animals in Film