Violence to Animals in Film: March 2026

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.

Sex & Fury

Sex & Fury (Furyô anego den: Inoshika Ochô). Norifumi Suzuki, 1973.

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Edition screened: Discotek Media Blu-ray, released 2004. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 188 minutes.

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

The Discotek release surprised me with three or four on-screen interpretive comments, nicely positioned at the top of the screen in a discreet font. They provided two-sentence explanations of cultural references such as the koi-koi card game or a notorious Japanese anarchist. Appreciated and enjoyed.

I also enjoy spinning my wheels about how much I hate comic relief in film. Who is this audience that I’m told needs relief from - cannot bear another moment of - the tension or beauty or intrigue that binds the film together? Maybe it’s about that other kind of relief, the bodily kind, and gomer-goober scenes in a film are permissive cues for that audience sitting in the frequency-and-urgency section to turn their heads toward a companion, phony horse-teeth silent laugh while placing their hands on their thighs, extend that posture adjustment to a standing position with “I’ll just be a minute,” a quick shrug and more horse teeth as though something’s funny.

Sex & Fury stars Reiko Ike and Christina Lindberg in a B-level Lady Snowblade-style film. The cultural comments are the opposite of comic relief. You can turn off your brain, enjoy the topless swordplay, and allow Discotek’s good annotations to provide a little much-needed intelligent relief.

Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day. Garry Marshall, 2010.

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Edition screened: Watched online. English language. Runtime approximately 125 minutes.

Summary: Trivializing account of a dog killed in a house fire; no visual component.

The Ninth Heart

The Ninth Heart (Deváté srdce). Juraj Herz, 1979.

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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. Czech language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The Nest

The Nest. Sean Durkin, 2020.

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Edition screened: Shout! Factory Blu-ray, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 107 minutes.

Summary: Recurring images of a dead horse.

Details:

1) Several times after the family moves to England we hear the horse whinnying in distress and kicking in his stall.

2) While the loving trainer is riding her horse, the horse gently collapses and rolls over in impending death. She strokes the horse in tearful panic as the animal wheezes. 50:40 - 51:16

2) A neighboring farmer is enlisted to shoot the suffering horse, 55:10-55:20. We hear the gun shot but the visual component is obscured.

3) The trainer and her two children cover the beloved horse’s body with sheets, then we see the body transported in the bucket of a loader and dumped into a grave, 58:12 - 1:00:50. The dumping of the horse’s body is upsetting.

4) The trainer’s young son leads them to the horse’s grave to find that the body now is barely covered with a small amount of dirt, as though it has risen to the surface on its own. She scoops dirt away in tearful confusion to expose more of the animal, as though hoping it might still be alive. 1:37:17- 1:39:03

This excellent film is not spoiled by excessive explanation about the horse’s death, the mysterious circumstances at the grave, nor several other unexplained incidents in the house. The Nest is recommended despite the sad death of the beautiful horse. My notes above are adequate to allow you to skip the horse scenes if you wish, but you must watch the important scenes between those vignettes to understand the film.

Hard Wood: The Adult Features of Ed Wood

Hard Wood: The Adult Features of Ed Wood. Ed Wood Jr. and Boris Petroff, 1962-1975.

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Edition screened: Severin Blu-ray set, released 2024. English language. Runtime of four feature films approximately 239 minutes.

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

The Severin set includes four feature films:

• ‘Necromania’: A Tale of Weird Love! (1971, Ed Wood Jr. as Don Miller, 53 minutes)
Watchable and unexpectedly sensual.

• The Only House in Town (1971, Ed Wood Jr. as Flint Holloway, 54 minutes)
Almost unwatchable; mostly disjointed scenes of chasing around in a semi-derelict house. Internet comments that the film is “unfinished” are generous.

• The Young Marrieds (1972, Ed Wood Jr. as Richard Trent, 68 minutes)
Also unexpectedly sensual and moderately entertaining.

• Shotgun Wedding (1962, Boris Petroff; written by Ed Wood Jr. as Larry Lee, 64 minutes)
This harmless hicksploitation film with no nudity or erotic content of any sort is the winner in the bunch. It would pass as an unusually entertaining double-length episode of The Beverley Hillbillies and features three attractive young women in Ozark-sexy getups who break into scenes with lines like “Pa! The preacher fell in the hog wallow!”

The sophisticated musical score of Shotgun Wedding is striking. Because the script, acting, and production are indistinguishable from The Beverley Hillbillies or Petticoat Junction, one expects mindless bits of incidental music dolloped out two or three measures at a time rather than a well-executed bebop groove that runs almost continuously. But the show-stopping scene is the wedding dance. We see a barn dance trio of banjo, acoustic guitar, and dobro, but we hear an excellent Dick Dale-style lounge-surf instrumental, fully choreographed for four couples and featuring one male dancer whose exceptionally polished moves and poise prove him as a serious professional dancer.

Opposite to Shotgun Wedding in every way are a series of nine mid-1970s stag loops made by Ed Wood Jr., included as bonus material on The Young Marrieds. Each of these is about 8:15 long, silent with clunky subtitles that stay on the screen for a long time and establish mood more than they summarize dialogue. Many feature John Holmes opposite the same red-haired actress. With the exception of The Two Faces of Kim, which consists simply of a transexual woman standing in front of a mirror shaving and doing her makeup to transform from Kim to Kim, these films are shockingly crude and obscene. Erotic features from the 1970s and 80s currently distributed by boutique labels often mention “The Golden Age of Pornography”. I never really contemplated the significance of that phrase until these aggressively seedy loops made me turn up my collar and slink down the disreputable other side of the street.

• 15″ Commercial (1974)

• Devil Cult (1973)

• Doc’s House Call (1973)

• Girl on a Bike (1973)

• Notorious Landlady (1974)

• The Two Faces of Kim (1975)

• The Virgin Next Door (1974)

• The Virgin Next Door Part Two (1974)

• Western Lust (1973)

Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade

Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade (La via della prostituzione). Joe D’Amato, 1978.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle, released 2023. Italian with English dub. Runtime approximately 88 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. 1.5/5❤

Violence to Animals in Film