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.

Clearcut

Clearcut. Ryszard Bugajski, 1991.

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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. English language. Runtime approximately 98 minutes.


Summary: Ritual and hunting violence.


Details:

1) A Native American calmly bites the head off of a small living snake and spits it out, 30:04-30:11.

2) A fish in a stream is speared with a pointed branch and pulled from the water, 48:28-48:43.

3) Lunk-head hunters can’t find the poor moose they’ve shot through the neck, but we see the animal lying in agony, 54:04-54:12.

4) A small spider is eaten alive, 54:45-54:50.


The Clearcut BD in the Severin box set also includes:


The Ballad of Crowfoot (1968 Willie Dunn)

You Are On Indian Land (1969 Michael Mitchell)

Consume (2017 Brunello Baino)


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Consume

Consume. Michael Peterson, 2017.

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Edition screened: Included on Clearcut BD in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 20 minutes.


Summary: No animals in the film.


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A Different Man

A Different Man. Aaron Schimberg, 2024.

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Edition screened: Watched in a theatre. English language. Runtime approximately 112 minutes.


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


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Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. Tom McLoughlin, 1986.

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Edition screened: Included in Paramount Friday the 13th: 8-Movie Collection DVD set, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 86 minutes.


Summary: A desk cop smashes an insect for no reason, 59:16.


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Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. John Carl Buechler, 1988.

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Edition screened: Included in Paramount Friday the 13th: 8-Movie Collection DVD set, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 88 minutes.


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


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Game Over

Game Over. Bernard Villiot, 1984.

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Edition screened: Included on Arron Blu-ray The Grand Duel, released 2019. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 8 minutes.


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



A 1981 Gottlieb Black Hole, figures prominently in the beginning of this short film.



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Hellboy

Hellboy. Guillermo del Toro, 2004.

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Edition screened: Columbia Tristar Blu-ray, released 2004. English language. Runtime approximately 122 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. Innumerable snarling 3-eyed beasts intent on destroying the world are killed.


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Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Guillermo del Toro, 2008.

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Edition screened: Universal Blu-ray, released 2008. English language. Runtime approximately 120 minutes.


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



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The Kingdom

The Kingdom (Riget). Lars von Trier, 1994.

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Edition screened: Included in Mubi The Kingdom Trilogy Blu-ray box set, released 2023. Danish language with English subtitle. Cumulative runtime of all four episodes approximately 291 minutes.


Summary: Killing of a dog and lab rats.


Details:

1) Episode 4: A dog is clubbed to death while attacking to protect his owner, 11:12-12:21.

2) Episode 4: A dead bloody lab rat is found in a hospital hallway, 57:18.

3) Episode 4: More lab rats are shot in the hallway, 57:45-57:56.


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The Kingdom II

The Kingdom II (Riget II, Episodes 5-8). Lars von Trier, 1997.

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Edition screened: Included in Mubi The Kingdom Trilogy Blu-ray box set, released 2023. Danish language with English subtitle. Cumulative runtime of all four episodes approximately 309 minutes.


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

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The Kingdom Exodus

The Kingdom Exodus (Riget Exodus, Episodes 9-13). Lars von Trier, 2022.

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Edition screened: Included in Mubi The Kingdom Trilogy Blu-ray box set, released 2023. Danish language with English subtitle. Cumulative runtime of all five episodes approximately 321 minutes.


Summary: 

Episode 10: An owl tears apart a rat’s body and eats some of it, 15:10-15:13.  

Episode 13: A very brief hallucinogenic image of a mouse with his tail caught in a trap.



Also included is a good interview with von Trier, filmed in the late 90s as he has finished up Season 2 of The Kingdom and is prepping for Dancer in the Dark. The interviewer himself is not skilled, but von Trier is at his best rhetorically. Super casual and obviously the successor to Buñuel, Bergman or both.

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Mercenaries from Hong Kong

Mercenaries from Hong Kong (Lie mo zhe). Jing Wong, 1982.

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Edition screened: Included in the Arrow Blu-ray box set Shawscope: Volume Two, released 2022. Mandarin language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 106 minutes.


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


Rather than the usual Asian tale of two bickering warlords and the young fighters on both sides, Mercenaries from Hong Kong is American-style nostalgia about The Toughest Vet who assembles a crew of his old buddies for a rescue-and-revenge mission in an unpleasant place.


 

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Passion Fever

Passion Fever. Doris Wishman (as Louis Silver) and Stelios Jackson, 1969.

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Edition screened: Included in AGFA Blu-ray set The Films of Doris Wishman: The Moonlight Years. English language. Runtime approximately 70 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


The same short account of how this disaster came to exist is repeated all over the internet. 

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The Running Jumping & Standing Film

The Running Jumping & Standing Film. Richard Lester, 1960.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray #711 A Hard Day’s Night, released 2014. No dialogue track. Runtime approximately 11 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Tempest

Tempest. Paul Mazursky, 1982.

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Edition screened: Sony DVD, released 2007. English language. Runtime approximately 140 minutes.


Summary: John Cassavetes slits a goat’s throat as a sacrifice, 2:07:27 - 2:07:57.


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Too Hot to Handle

Too Hot to Handle. Don Schain, 1977.

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Edition screened: Included in Shout! Factory Lethal Ladies Collection DVD set, released 2011. English language. Runtime approximately 75 minutes.


Details: A real cock fight intercut with a romantic scene, 55:17-57:08.


The Roger Corman’s Cult Classics Triple Feature ‘Lethal Ladies’ Collection also includes:


Firecracker (1981 Cirio H. Santiago)

TNT Jackson (1974 Cirio H. Santiago)


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You Are On Indian Land

You Are On Indian Land. Michael Mitchell, 1969.

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Edition screened: Included on Clearcut BD in Severin Blu-ray box set All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 32 minutes.


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


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All About Lily Chou-Chou

All About Lily Chou-Chou (Riri Shushu no subete). Shunji Isai, 2001.

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Edition screened: Film Movement Blu-ray, released 2024. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 146 minutes.


Summary: A dead fish is on the beach. 


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