Violence to Animals in Film

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.

Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection

Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection. Bill Rebane, 1961-1988.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray box set, released 2021. English language. Cumulative runtime of features, approximately 667 minutes.

Summary: Invasion from Inner Earth has an innocuous inclusion of a dead game bird, and The Game shows the exaggerated stomping of a fake spider.

The Arrow box set includes an overcompensation of supplemental material and the featured presentations:

Twist Craze (1961, David Allen)

Dance Craze (1962)

Monster a Go-Go (1965)

Kidnap Extortion (1973)

Invasion from Inner Earth (1974)

The Alpha Incident (1978)

The Demons of Ludlow (1983)

The Game (1984)

Twister’s Revenge! (1988)

Who Is Bill Rebane? (2020, David Cairns)

The Alpha Incident

The Alpha Incident. Bill Rebane, 1978.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.

Summary: A hamster in a research laboratory is handled at the beginning of the film, but we see no harm inflicted on the animal.

. . . and the Pursuit of Happiness

. . . and the Pursuit of Happiness. Louis Malle, 1986.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Eclipse Series 32: The Documentaries of Louis Malle DVD set, released 2007. Various languages with French narrations and English subtitles. Runtime approximately 81 minutes.

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

The Beach Bum

The Beach Bum. Harmony Korine, 2017.

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Edition screened: Universal Blu-ray, released 2019. English language. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.

Summary: Inappropriate handling of a kitten.

Details: The drunken Matthew McConaughey picks up a seemingly homeless white kitten at the beginning of the film and interacts with it periodically throughout the film. We see the kitten given beer mixed with milk and a tiny taste of a cocktail. At the end of the film the kitten is held through an enormous fireworks display with whooping crowd, and clearly very afraid. An unrelated scene depicts Martin Lawrence giving a parrot a small amount of cocaine.

From the characters’ points of view, both the kitten and and the parrot are treated only with great care and affection, but the movie industry must stop teaching that it is clever or funny to give animals products that are poisonous to them.

Birds of Prey and the Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

Birds of Prey and the Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. Cathy Yan, 2019.

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Edition screened: Warner Blu-ray, released 2020. English language. Runtime approximately 109 minutes.

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

Calcutta

Calcutta. Louis Malle, 1969.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Eclipse Series 32: The Documentaries of Louis Malle DVD set, released 2007. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 99 minutes.

Summary: Dead rat.

Details: A dead rat lies among refuse, 1:34:38-1 34:41.

Céline and Julie Go Boating

Céline and Julie Go Boating (Céline et Julie vont en bateau). Jacques Rivette, 1974.

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Edition screened: BFI Blu-ray, released 2017. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 194 minutes.

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

The BFI Blu-ray of this fabulous film also includes Alain Resnais’s 1956 short film Toute la mémoire du monde (1956), and Walter R. Booth’s even shorter The Haunted Curiosity Shop (1901).

Child’s Play

Child’s Play. Tom Holland, 1988.

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Edition screened: MGM/UA DVD, released 2001. English language. Runtime approximately 97 minutes.

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

Dance Craze

Dance Craze. Bill Rebane, 1962.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 15 minutes.

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

An inferior follow-up to the much better Twist Craze (1961), Dance Craze is a comedy short that highlights a few historical dance fads, returning often to an awkward Twist Party at a dinner club.

The Demons of Ludlow

The Demons of Ludlow. Bill Rebane, 1983.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 82 minutes.

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

The Documentaries of Louis Malle

The Documentaries of Louis Malle. Louis Malle, 1962-1986.

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Edition screened: Criterion Eclipse Series #02 DVD set, released 2007. Mostly French language with English subtitles. Cumulative runtime approximately 817 minutes.

Summary: Phantom India and Calcutta include comparatively innocuous images of a scavengers eating a cow’s body and a dead rat, respectively. God’s Country show the unnatural ghoulishness of a bacon processing plant, the psychological commonality between God’s people and Country people.

This 2nd volume in Criterion’s Eclipse Series includes:

Vive le tour (1962)

Humain, trop humain (1974)

Place de la République (1974)

Phantom India (1969)

Calcutta (1969)

God's Country (1985)

. . . and the Pursuit of Happiness (1986)

God’s Country

God’s Country. Louis Malle, 1985.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Eclipse Series 32: The Documentaries of Louis Malle DVD set, released 2007. English language. Runtime approximately 89 minutes.

Summary: Pork processing plant.

Details: Loading of pigs into the truck at a farm, 26:40; Cut to the processing plant. We do not see the slaughter, but pick up the process when the carcasses are hanging on the conveyor chain, through butchering and packaging as bacon, 27:44-29:28.

Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Stanley Kubrick, 1964.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #821, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.

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

Dying at Grace

Dying at Grace. Allan King, 2003.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Eclipse Series 24: The Actuality Dramas of Allan King 5-DVD set, released 2010. English language. Runtime approximately 148 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Fright Night

Fright Night. Tom Holland, 1985.

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Edition screened: Columbia TriStar DVD, released 1999. English language. Runtime approximately 106 minutes.

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

The Game (Rebane)

The Game (The Cold). Bill Rebane, 1984.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 84 minutes.

Summary: Depiction of a tarantula being crushed.

Details: A tarantula is violently smashed underfoot, complete with generous squirting of the oatmealy and not very realistic sort, and a follow-up shot of the carcass and gore, 7:55-7:59.

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters. Ivan Reitman, 1984.

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Edition screened: Columbia TriStar DVD, released 1999. English language. Runtime approximately 107 minutes.

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

A 1980 Stern Star Gazer can be seen for several seconds in the upstairs of the firehouse office beginning at 29:00.

The Goodbye Place

The Goodbye Place. Richard Kelly, 1996.

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Edition screened: Included on Arrow Blu-ray Donnie Darko, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 9 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

An interesting and enjoyable early film that alludes to a few ideas that return in Donnie Darko.

Guys and Dolls

Guys and Dolls. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955.

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Edition screened: MGM/UA DVD, released 2006. English language. Runtime approximately 149 minutes.

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

High School Fantasies

High School Fantasies. James Bryan, 1973.

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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #342, released 2020. English language. Runtime approximately 70 minutes.

Summary: Dead skunk gag.

Details: Two wacky pranksters sneak around at night dragging an obviously fake “dead skunk” on a cord, 6:23-7:56. There is no effort to even make the skunk look like anything other that a child’s stuffed animal. 1/5❤

A 1961 Williams Reserve is first glimpsed at 20:56, then a decent view of the upper table and the bottom portion of the backglass at 40:22-40:33.

A Hard Day’s Night

A Hard Day’s Night. Richard Lester, 1964.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #711, released 2014. English language. Runtime approximately 87 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The Haunted Curiosity Shop

The Haunted Curiosity Shop. Walter R. Booth, 1901.

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Edition screened: Included on BFI Blu-ray Céline and Julie Go Boating, released 2017. No audio track. Runtime approximately 2 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

An entertaining excuse to demonstrate early special effects prowess.

Humain, trop humain

Humain, trop humain. Louis Malle, 1974.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Eclipse Series 32: The Documentaries of Louis Malle DVD set, released 2007. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 72 minutes.

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

I Am Guilty

I Am Guilty. Christoph Hochhäusler, 2005.

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Edition screened: TLA DVD, released 2007. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 87 minutes.

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

I, Tonya

I, Tonya. Craig Gillespie, 2017.

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Edition screened: Universal DVD, released 2018. English language. Runtime approximately 119 minutes.

Summary: Shooting and skinning of rabbits.

Details:

1) Training by her father’s side to be a moron, little-girl-Tonya shoots at a rabbit and misses at 7:53. She shoots at another rabbit at 9:02, hits it, and we see the rabbit’s body roll with the impact.

2) Father skins rabbits and lays their pelts out, 9:56-10:11. We see young Tonya wearing her rabbit fur jacket immediately afterwards.

The Indelicate Balance

The Indelicate Balance. Joseph W. Sarno, 1969.

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Edition screened: Included with Rretro-Seduction DVD The Seduction of Inga, released 2004. Swedish language. Runtime approximately 88 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals. 1/5❤

Invasion from Inner Earth

Invasion from Inner Earth. Bill Rebane as “Ito”, 1974.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 94 minutes.

Summary: A hunter carries a dead pheasant at the beginning of the film, but there is no attention paid to it.

The Invasion

The Invasion. Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2007.

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Edition screened: Warner Blu-ray, released 20087. English language. Runtime approximately 99 minutes.

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

Kidnap Extortion: Robbery by Telephone

Kidnap Extortion: Robbery by Telephone. Bill Rebane, 1973.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 15 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

An enjoyable corporate video about preventing one very specific type of extortion.

Killing Eve: Seasons 1-4

Killing Eve: Seasons 1-4. Various directors, 2018-2022.

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Edition screened: Individual BBC DVD sets, released 2018-2022. English language. Runtimes approximately, Season 1: 338 minutes; Season 2: 360 minutes; Season 3: 336 minutes; Season 4: 332minutes.

Summary: Several scenes of animals that have been killed by humans.

Details:

1) Season 1, Episode 2: A photograph of a hanged dog is shown as part of a psychological examination, 12:43-13:03.

2) Season 4, Episode 1: Villanelle sits on the edge of a bathtub holding a cat. The cat becomes startled and leaps or is thrown upward presumably hitting his head on the ceiling. Cut to a brief shot of the dead cat floating in the bathtub with blood, 17:20. Later, a plastic bag is dropped on the floor with the dead cat’s legs protruding 22:27-22:29.

Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company

Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company. Allan King, 2005.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Eclipse Series 24: The Actuality Dramas of Allan King 5-DVD set, released 2010. English language. Runtime approximately 112 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Midsommar

Midsommar. Ari Aster, 2019.

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Edition screened: Lionsgate Blu-ray, released 2019. English language. Runtime approximately 147 minutes.

Summary: Ritual use of a bear’s body.

Details: Several non-violent images early in the film let us know that a bear ultimately will be sacrificed. As Midsommar reaches its dramatic conclusion at 2:16:25, we see the already-dead bear laid out respectfully on a table with his chest cut open. There is no particular blood or gore, just an overhead shot of the room which includes the opened bear. An elder then instructs children about removing organs without making a mess. We see a few seconds of intestines being handled at 2:16:30, then through 2:17:10 we return to the overhead shot of the room, this time with the bear’s carcass cleaned and respectful-looking.

This is not like one of those gory cow slaughter scenes that the Italian Realists loved, and certainly nothing like the typical idiot-hillbilly-cleaning-a-deer scene. The bear obviously is fake, there really is no blood or mess, and the tone is calm and constructive. It you are inclined to see Midsommar anyway, this scene is not a reason to avoid it.

Monster a Go-Go

Monster a Go-Go. Bill Rebane and Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1965.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray set Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 69 minutes.

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

Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite. Jared Hess, 2004.

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Edition screened: 20th Century Fox DVD, released 2007. English language. Runtime approximately 86 minutes.

Summary: Indifference to animal cruelty.

Details: At 16:10 Napoleon watches the elderly farmer across the road raise a shotgun to a cow’s head. A passing school bus blocks our view of the killing, and instead we see the reaction of the grade-school children on the bus and hear the gun blast at 16:23 and.

Napoleon repeatedly mistreats his grandmother’s pet llama, seemingly a gentle and kind animal, by flinging the animal’s food into the ground. Napoleon also takes a job at an egg-laying facility where the horrible conditions in which the chickens are kept is a background for some quick physical comedy.

Napoleon Dynamite does not show injury to animals, but the creators clearly think the terrible ways animals are treated in the real world is good material for some quick comedy.

The drawings and music in this film indicate that the creators know about Daniel Johnston.

Nausicaa

Nausicaa. Agnès Varda, 1970.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 7) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 98 minutes.

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

Pirates of the Caribbean: 5 Movie Collection

Pirates of the Caribbean: 5 Movie Collection. Various directors, 2003-2017.

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Edition screened: Walt Disney Blu-ray box set, released 2017. English language. Cumulative runtime approximately 719 minutes.

Summary: Some films include comparatively mild depictions of harm to animals. Click on individual titles for details.

The 2017 box set includes:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003 Gore Verbinski)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006 Gore Verbinski)

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007 Gore Verbinski)

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011 Rob Marshall)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017 Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg)

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Gore Verbinski, 2007.

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Edition screened: Included in the Walt Disney Blu-ray box set Pirates of the Caribbean: 5 Movie Collection, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 161 minutes.

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

Jack the Monkey gets some good scenes and does a great job in this third installment. Also, the dog who perpetually carries the ring of keys, last seen running for his life in Po/tC 2, show up here to contribute to the running gag about sea turtles.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Salazar's Revenge). Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, 2017.

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Edition screened: Included in the Walt Disney Blu-ray box set Pirates of the Caribbean: 5 Movie Collection, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 129 minutes.

Summary: Incineration of a rat.

Details: A witch throws a rat into a percolating caldron, 40:09. We don’t actually see the rat hit the surface or die. He vanishes or disintegrates with a magical flourish just above the surface.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Rob Marshall, 2011.

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Edition screened: Included in the Walt Disney Blu-ray box set Pirates of the Caribbean: 5 Movie Collection, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 136 minutes.

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

Place de la République

Place de la République. Louis Malle, 1974.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Eclipse Series 32: The Documentaries of Louis Malle DVD set, released 2007. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.

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

The Pleasure of Love in Iran

The Pleasure of Love in Iran (Plaisir d'amour en Iran). Agnès Varda, 1977.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 7) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 6 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Primal Fear

Primal Fear. Gregory Hoblit, 1996.

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Edition screened: Paramount DVD, released 1998. English language. Runtime approximately 130 minutes.

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

Rome: Open City

Rome: Open City (Roma, città aperta). Roberto Rossellini, 1945.

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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #497, included in the box set #500 Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy, released 2009. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 103 minutes.

Summary: Offscreen killing of two sheep, with one seen dead. Thank you to our friend Ed for this excellent citation:

Around 59:10- 59:47 German soldiers bring two sheep on ropes into a café telling the innkeeper they have brought meat and noting they will butcher the animals themselves. “Yes, you people specialize in that,” the innkeeper says. At 1:00:59, there is the offscreen sound of a gunshot. Several characters go to investigate. As they look through shutters, one says “Poor creatures” and we see the soldiers in a courtyard standing above the sheep. Both sheep are shorn and one is lying on the ground, presumably dead. A soldier approaches the other sheep and puts a gun against it. We hear a shot as the camera cuts to the characters watching through the windows at 1:01:11.

The Shining

The Shining. Stanley Kubrick, 1980.

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Edition screened: Warner Blu-ray, released 2007. English language. Runtime approximately 144 minutes.

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