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.

Anatomy of a Fall

Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d'une chute). Justine Triet, 2023.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #1218, released 2024. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 151 minutes.


Summary: The family dog is intentionally poisoned with an aspirin overdose, then revived when he is near death, 2:01:30 - 2:04:20. The dog is fine afterwards and his performance is as exceptional as that of the human actors.


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Bad Girls Do Cry

Bad Girls Do Cry. Sid Melton, 1954.

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Edition screened: Included on Something Weird DVD Teen Turmoil Triple Feature, released 2004. English language. Runtime approximately 59 minutes.


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


This film has no entertainment value and is a boring chore to endure except for one interesting incident around the 4-minute mark:  Average-looking Misty Ayers clumsily undresses down to her mundane white undergarments, turns to face away from the camera, and we can see the oversized stiff paper price tag bulging through the seat of her underpants along with the string that attaches it. Was the producer’s scream of And wear clean underwear tomorrow! so upsetting that Miss Ayers forgot to remove the tag from these drawers she bought at Woolworth’s on the way home? Or does the AD return everything to Woolworth’s after a low-budget shoot like this? In either case, how did Miss Ayers not feel and how did the director not notice what looks like a cereal box wedged between her buttocks?


The SW disc also includes Girl in Trouble and A Good Time with a Bad Girl. 


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Edge of Sanity

Edge of Sanity. Gérard Kikoïne, 1989.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2022. English language. Runtime approximately 85 minutes.


Summary: Dr. Jekyll’s home laboratory includes a caged monkey who seems more of a pet than a lab animal. The monkey joins the doctor in sampling lab-created cocaine variants and occasionally goes into prolonged screaming fits. The monkey is spoken to nicely and we do not see him physically abused, but he should not be confined to a small cage and engulfed in clouds of simmering crack.


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Él (Buñuel)

Él. Luis Buñuel, 1953.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #1289, released 2025. Spanish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.


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


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Frightmare (Horror Star)

Frightmare (Horror Star). Norman Thaddeus Vane, 1981.

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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #095, released 2015. English language. Runtime approximately 86 minutes.


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


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A Good Time with a Bad Girl

A Good Time with a Bad Girl. Barry Mahon, 1967.

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Edition screened: Included on Something Weird DVD Teen Turmoil Triple Feature, released 2004. English language. Runtime approximately 59 minutes.


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


The last twenty minutes of this film is a master class in terrible editing but the first forty minutes is surprisingly enjoyable. An up-tight businessman and a down-loose 19-year-old girl hit Las Vegas for the first time, find each other, and share two days of fun. The settings are mostly exterior shots of 1967 Las Vegas, but along with the predictable pans across casino facades we also spend a lot of time on secondary streets filled with drug stores and 5 & 10s for normal Vegas residents. Fun!


The SW disc also includes Girl in Trouble and Bad Girls Do Cry. 


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Red Spirit Lake

Red Spirit Lake. Charles Pinion, 1993.

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Edition screened: Saturn’s Core Blu-ray, released 2022. English language. Runtime approximately 69 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. 02.5/5❤


The Saturn’s Core BD also includes Pinion’s We Await (1996). 


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Women’s Prison Massacre

Women’s Prison Massacre (Blade Violent/Emanuelle in Prison). Bruno Mattei and Gilbert Roussel, 1983.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle, released 2023. English language. Runtime approximately 98 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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