Stereo (Cronenberg)

Stereo (Tile 3B of a CAEE Educational Mosaic). David Cronenberg, 1969.

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Edition screened: Included with the Criterion Blu-ray Scanners #712, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 63 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

I dug this early Cronenberg film, in which a handful of students on a dreamy International Style campus participate in experiments about extrasensory communication. Pacing and tone of this beautiful black-and-white movie recall La Jetée, while the unapologetically intellectual voice-over sounds like the HAL 9000 reading Tristan Tzara.

Demon (Wrona)

Demon. Marcin Wrona, 2015.

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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. Polish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 94 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Nang Nak

Nang Nak. Nonzee Nimibutr, 1999.

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

Summary: Brief fishing violence and dead rats.

Details:

1) A fish is speared in a river, 39:32.

2) Dead rats float in the water, 57:41.

Nang Nak is accompanied by an interview with the director (2024, produced by Kier-La Janisse) “Love and Impermanence: Nang Nak and the Rebirth of Thai Cinema.”

Kindil El Bahr

Kindil El Bahr. Damien Ounouri, 2016.

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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. Arabic language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 41 minutes.

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

Despite its short run time, Kindil El Bahr tells an interesting variation on rape/revenge stories by combining the woman’s wrath with older dangers of the ocean. It accompanies the feature film Scales.

Qâf

Qâf: The Sacred Mountain. Jamil Dehlavi, 1985.

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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. Scored. Runtime approximately 27 minutes.

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

Made during the shooting of Born of Fire, Qâf is twenty-seven beautiful minutes of lava flowing from an erupting volcano, set to music by Tangerine Dream.

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. 

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. 

A Safe Place

A Safe Place. Henry Jaglom, 1971.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #548, included in America Lost and Found: The BBS Story box set, released 2010. English language. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.

Summary: Short, calm scenes of Orson Welles in a zoo; no depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Under Capricorn

Under Capricorn. Alfred Hitchcock, 1949.

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Edition screened: Kino Lorber Blu-ray, released 2018. English language. Runtime approximately 117 minutes.

Summary: Several brief discussions of shooting horses that have broken legs, and we hear a gun as a horse is shot. There are no depictions or graphic descriptions of harm to horses.

Smile (Ritchie)

Smile. Michael Ritchie, 1975.

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Edition screened: Fun City Blu-ray, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 113 minutes.

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

The Witch in Love

The Witch in Love (La strega in amore/Strange Obsessions). Damiano Damiani, 1966.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror, released 2022. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 110 minutes.

Summary: Murdering of cats.

1) A dead cat is found among the plants, 25:26-26:33, strangled and with a rope around its neck.

2) A live cat with a rope around its neck is dragged through a courtyard, 1:25:52-1:26:07. The cat is sprawling, hissing and resisting in every way possible.

These scenes are easily skipped, leaving an interesting adaptation of Carlos Fuentes’ novel Aura.

Incoherence

Incoherence (Ji-ri-myeol-lyeol). Bong Joon-ho, 1994.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray #1073 Memories of Murder, released 2021. Korean language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 31 minutes.

Summary: No animals in the film.

Of the Bong films I have seen, I enjoyed this student film the most by far and not because it is the shortest. Smacks of Haneke.

My Nights with Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie

My Nights with Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie (Mijn Nachten met Susan, Olga, Albert, Julie, Piet & Sandra). Pim de la Parra, 1975.

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Edition screened: Included on Cult Epics The Dutch Sex Wave Collection, released 2017. Dutch language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 85 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. 3/5❤

Divine Trash

Divine Trash. Steve Yeager, 1998.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray #1131 Pink Flamingos, released 2022. English language. Runtime approximately 97 minutes.

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

Divine Trash was awarded the 1998 Sundance Film Festival ‘Trophy for Documentary’. It focuses specifically on the making of Pink Flamingos, and also illuminates the evolution of director John Waters and his stable of crew and actors. I found Divine Trash an enjoyable viewing experience that enhanced my understanding of Waters’ famous characters and scenes by tying his ideas to works of other contemporary filmmakers ranging from Andy Warhol and Kenneth Anger to Herschell Gordon Lewis.

As My Best Fiend serves as a satisfying placeholder if you haven’t yet experienced the films of Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, Divine Trash is a satisfying calling card from John Waters and Divine if their films are not at the top of your To Watch list. 

Fireman of the Folies-Bergère

Fireman of the Folies-Bergère (Le Pompier des Folies Bergères). Unknown director, 1928.

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Edition screened: Included on Kino Lorber Princesse Tam-Tam/Zouzou Blu-ray, released 2022. Scored, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 8 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

A fireman’s drunken fantasies provide the framework for entertaining early special effects, a surprising amount of full nudity, and a brief cameo by (clothed) Josephine Baker.

The Stylist

The Stylist. Jill Gevargizian, 2020.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 104 minutes.

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

The Arrow release of this entertaining horror film also includes Gevargizian’s short initial exploration of the same killer (2016, The Stylist, 15 minutes). 

Also provided is the 7-minute film Pity, created by a crew member of The Stylist, and including some violence to animals.

A White Spot in the Back of the Head

A White Spot in the Back of the Head (Tache blanche sur la nuque). Viðar Víkingsson, 1979.

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Edition screened: Included in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. French with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 33 minutes.

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

This very good short film is included on the Lake of the Dead / Tilbury BD in the box.

Death Has Blue Eyes

Death Has Blue Eyes (To koritsi vomva/The Para Psychics). Nico Mastorakis, 1976.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2021. English dub. Runtime approximately 80 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The Female (Seventy Times Seven)

The Female (Seventy Times Seven / Setenta veces siete). Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, 1962.

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Edition Screened: Included on Something Weird “Sizzling Latin Double Feature” DVD Fuego/The Female, released 2002. English overdub. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.

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

The Female seems considered a dismissible throw-away, bundled with the more crowd-pleasing Fuego. Fuego is campy fun but has no substantial merit beyond its visual content. The Female, conversely, holds its own as a well-written tale of a woman’s impulsive and imperiling decisions. We see her shifting allegiance with impoverished, desperate folks in the Tex-Mex desert, intercut with vignettes of her later life in a rough Mexican brothel. The people she knew in the desert were depicted as potentially violent or even lethal, but never harmed or threatened her. Only after she betrayed them all does she find an abusive environment in the disreputable brothel. 

Spirit of Cheshire

Spirit of Cheshire. Kevin Marshland, 1980.

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Edition screened: Included on BFI DVD Red Shift, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 20 minutes.

Summary: No animals in the film.

A group of historic Rolls-Royce automobiles lead an enjoyable tour around historic Cheshire.