Worst case of animal abuse in a movie?

[Random_Design]

I recently watched The Wild Bunch and was a bit disturbed; first the early scene with the scorpion being fed live to ants and later the lot of them burning, and then there seemed a lack of concern for the horses. When they were descending/falling down the dune, that doesn’t seem like something one could safely plan? And the bridge demolition scene after the train robbery, that wasn’t fake was it? I’m pretty sure no modern movie would have such scenes with real animals.

Got me wondering though, what movie is the most egregious offender in terms of animal cruelty?

[RobDog]

Well there’s the ritual buffalo slaughter at the end of Apocalypse Now. That was pretty visceral, and it didn’t look like the beast died too quickly.

Mind you, on second thoughts, wasn’t the first cut a heavy blow to the back of the neck, probably severing the spinal column, so maybe it was a quick death?

[chacoguy]

IIRC several dozen horses were killed filming Ben Hur.

[kayaker]

In last year’s Noah

the animals that were not loaded onto the ark died in a great flood.

[MrAtoz]

Possibly not the most egregious–I’m sure there have been other films that are crueler–but one that should earn some kind of infamy just for being so widely seen is the “dinosaur” fight from Hal Roach’s 1940 film One Million B.C.

You may never have seen that movie, but I’ll bet you’ve seen its setpiece fight, because it was re-used by nearly every cheapo dinosaur movie ever made. I’m talking about the fight between a juvenile alligator (with a Dimetrodon-like fin glued to its back) and a monitor lizard. Which was achieved by putting the animals together and filming them as they honest-to-God fought each other. And which appears to end with the monitor lizard actually dying.

Even if the death of the monitor was faked (although I doubt it), it’s very clear throughout the scene that the animals are legitimately injuring each other. There’s various other animal cruelty throughout One Million B.C., but that’s the footage that everybody’s seen in one place or another.

[Ethilrist]

From a Cracked article, The 5 Most Horrifyingly Wasteful Film Shoots:

We’ve previously established that the chariot race in the 1925 film Ben-Hur was one of the most dangerous film shoots in history. In a quest for realism at the expense of life, the film recreated a full on, no-holds-barred chariot race among the stuntmen with a $100 incentive for the winner, and at least one loser was treated to the consolation prize of death. But that’s not why it’s on our list; the scene was also responsible for killing around 100 horses.

The majority of those deaths were thanks to one man: B. Reeves Eason. He was the second unit director in charge of the chariot race and seemed to have a real vendetta against horses. When an animal had a problem, instead of getting treatment from a vet it, he’d just shoot it instead. Worst of all, most of those horses were killed during the disastrous yearlong shoot in Italy, of which almost none of the original footage made it into the final movie.

but even worse…

Casablanca director Michael Curitz created a movie in 1936 called The Charge of the Light Brigade that was responsible for so many horse deaths that people stopped counting.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_19548_the-5-most-horrifyingly-wasteful-film-shoots_p2.html#ixzz3QhpuPsH8

[DCnDC]

6 animals (a coatimundi, turtle, tarantula, snake, squirrel monkey, and a pig) were killed on-screen in Cannibal Holocaust. The monkey scene took 2 takes, so 7 animals total were killed.

[Morbo]

@RobDog

Well there’s the ritual buffalo slaughter at the end of Apocalypse Now. That was pretty visceral, and it didn’t look like the beast died too quickly.

Mind you, on second thoughts, wasn’t the first cut a heavy blow to the back of the neck, probably severing the spinal column, so maybe it was a quick death?

That would be OK if it was just the one buffalo slaughter and Coppola just happened to film a native sacrifice. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case:

In the DVD commentary, Francis Ford Coppola downplays his involvement in the controversial slaughter of the water buffalo, saying he “happened to film a ritual” being performed by Ifugao natives. However in the article “Ifugao extras and the making of Apocalypse Now”, cast and crew detail how Coppola staged the entire scene, directing the natives to chant and sing while they killed the animal which Coppola provided. Afterwards, Coppola “went overboard and ordered a whole truckload” of animals which he gave to the Ifugao to slaughter on camera. However only one water buffalo slaughter was used in the final cut. (‘Flip Magazine 2003, v.2, n.3, pp. 29-33, 90-91’)

[Barkis_is_Willin]

How about Oldboy, that dude eating an octopus alive while it’s struggling to escape his mouth.

[nearwildheaven]

There’s a cult film called “El Topo” which has a scene featuring dozens of dead rabbits rotting in a field. Yes, they were killed for the scene.

And the classic art film “Tree of Wooden Clogs” has two separate scenes where a goose and a pig are slaughtered, and it’s obviously real. While these scenes would be extremely disturbing to many viewers, it didn’t bother me because it was part of the plot, and also done humanely.

If you count humans as animals, that “Twilight Zone” movie, where three people, including two children who were working in the middle of the night, were killed by a helicopter blade trumps them all.

[Peter_Morris]

The Disney lemming massacre.

White Wilderness (film)

[Baker]

@chacoguy

IIRC several dozen horses were killed filming Ben Hur.

Cite?
I
f this was true I think it would be well known. Charlton Heston had a lot to say about making that movie, but everything he said(in his autobiography) about the head horse wrangler, Yakima Canutt, was positive. If Canutt had been careless I think Heston would have mentioned it. Heston went on to work in several movies in which Canutt was in charge of the horses, he never mentioned them being killed en masse. Canutt had every reason to keep things safe, his son was Heston’s stunt double in the movie. Heston did say the story about one of the chariot drivers being killed was just that, a story, nobody died.

[Zsofia]

I’d definitely say the 1925 Ben Hur, having seen it, without even having to read up on it. That is definitely not a special effect.

I was kind of disturbed a few days ago when we watched The Rules of the Game, because we really weren’t expecting it to feature dozens of pheasants and rabbits dying.

[chacoguy]

@Baker

Cite?

Post #6.

[Quimby]

Early Hollywood didn’t care about animals and killed them all the time. That is why the American Humane Society created the disclaimer we see on almost every movie: to shame them into behaving. Now an animal dying on a set is newsworthy and rare.

[MovieMogul]

From the AV Club: 21 films and TV shows that killed or hurt animals.

Here’s the note on Jesse James:

Jesse James was one of the biggest hits of 1939, matching the take of Frank Capra’s hit Mr. Smith Goes To Washington the same year. But these days, it’s largely just remembered as the film that got the American Humane Association involved in filmmaking. One of Jesse James’ stunts involved Frank James (Henry Fonda) and his brother Jesse (Tyrone Power) escaping a posse by riding their horses off a tall cliff and into a river. The stunt involved dumping an unwilling horse out of a chute and having a stuntman jump after it. Their fall was shot twice from different angles and cut into the film in sequence, so it would look like both brothers made the dangerous leap. But just one jump was enough to kill the horse. (Accounts vary over whether it drowned because it broke its back in the fall, or because it panicked when it hit the water.) After widespread protests, the Motion Picture Association Of America agreed to let the AHA establish guidelines for the use of animals in films, and oversee filming to ensure compliance. The MPAA was trying to avoid litigation and legislation, but the result was still a stringent set of rules and a set of overseers quick to let the public know if animals were harmed in the course of making a film or TV show.

[GreasyJack]

Speaking of westerns and AHA, there was also Heaven’s Gate which is supposedly responsible for the “no animals were harmed” thing in the credits of subsequent movies. Of course that movie also faced widespread accusations of cruelty to audiences.

@Baker

Cite?

It was from the 1925 version, not the 1959 one with Charlton Heston.

[ftg]

In That Lucky Touch, Roger Moore, Susannah York, Lee J. Cobb, etc. go on a rabbit hunt on an English estate. The fur is shown literally flying.