To Kill or Not to Kill? The Definitive Guide to Cinematic Animal Deaths
Interested in filmmaking? If so, you need to be aware of the rules—the written, unwritten and just now written—that come with the job.
Killing animal characters is always touchy. Directors often get so caught up in the story they forget that some animals are simply off-limits to kill off. Making a mistake in this realm is not only fatal to the animal character but for the movie itself. It affects the careers of everyone involved in the making of the motion picture. I can only imagine how many talented directors never got their shot because their indie movie killed off the wrong animal.
Not sure what lines you cannot cross? You came to the right place. Here at Serious Sinema, I am happy to bring you the Hollywood-certified rules, which breaks down whether you can or cannot kill a particular type of animal. Study them well.
Dogs
Let’s just get the hardest one out of the way. Killing a dog character is a bold move, but it can be done the right way. Here are the scenarios:
The Dog as a comic relief sidekick—Never ever kill it. You might as well kill the cast and crew. Killing a canine comic relief character is cinematic suicide. If UP (2009) killed off Doug it would be called DOWN.
The Dog as a young boy’s best friend—the dog must die. Do NOT let the credits roll while there is still air in the dog’s lungs. This is known as the "Old Yeller" principle.
The Dog as a tiny companion in a girl’s purse—for some reason, we never kill these stupid dogs even though everyone wants us to. Please, go be the first. Your movie will probably be a big hit based on that decision alone.
Cats
This is an easy one, considering cats never die in real life. Here is the rule:
Any Cat ever—Never kill the cat. The cat always makes it out alive. Always. The closest anyone has ever gotten to killing a cat in a movie is the movie Cats (2019), and how awful was that?
All dogs may go to heaven, but cats stay right here on earth. Forever.
Horses
Ah, another tricky one. It may seem like we at Hollywood are very inconsistent about this, but when we break it down, we actually follow some very specific guidelines. With some practice, it should not be heard to stay on the beaten path.
Horses in a battlefield—You definitely need to kill some horses for realism. Don’t worry though, only the girls watching the war film will cry about it. They will always, without fail, gasp and say “not the horsies!” This is by design. The women won’t care so much about the men being slaughtered in the scene, but their hearts will go out to the poor innocent horses. That’s how you keep both the men and the women invested in your movie battle.
Horses that have a name—Totally different story. As soon as you give a horse a name, it must not die.*
*NOTE: There are some mixed opinions on this. We could talk about The Never Ending Story but we really don’t want to.
Horses as a girl’s best friend—You could kill the horse at the end (see Dog as young boy’s best friend above) but just keep in mind you might end up on someone’s hit list.
Tyrannosaurus Rex
Another simple one. The T-Rex must never die. It has free reign to kill anyone it wants (lawyers and rich people preferred) but it must never be killed, even by other dinosaurs. We learned this one the hard way. Remember Jurassic Park 3?
Exactly.
Birds
This is where things get pretty flexible. The general consensus when it comes to feathered flyers is: go for it.
Kill ‘em all. No one likes birds anyway.
Dumb and Dumber (1994) learned that you can kill off birds (even pets or endangered species) for pretty much any reason and people won’t get mad. In fact, it's kind of hilarious.
Over the years, Disney has learned that you can even torture an anthropomorphic bird constantly in the film or make it really really stupid and people will just laugh.
What can I say? We just hate birds. They suck.
(Photo credit: Disney wiki/Walt Disney Pictures)
Sure, these are photos of Disney torturing birds, but we figure if they can do that, nothing is stop anyone from killing birds in their movies, even for comic relief.
Ants
You are allowed to kill an ant as long as you make it the saddest thing that has ever
happened in the history of the universe.
(Photo Credits left to right: Screen Rant, Screen Rant, IMDb)
Aliens
This is a tricky one. With so many alien films out there, we've developed a foolproof system.
Aliens as child’s best friend—Do not kill the
alien. Better to go with the safer option and have humans capture the alien for experimentation but then have the alien escape later. We don’t want to traumatize kids. If the alien took the form of a dog, we have no idea what the right move would be. This is why no one has ever made an alien dog movie, despite the interesting premise.
Alien as ugly hostile—You can kill them. Duh.
Alien that is furry and huggable—George Lucas opened this can of worms in 1983 and no one has recovered. Let’s give people another few decades before we try that again.
We hope you learned a lot about the nuance behind movie animal deaths. Now you are prepared to make films without committing a mistake that might haunt your movie for all eternity. See, it's not as though no one has broken these rules. You just haven't heard of it happening because the consequences are that dire.
The stakes are quite high, but we believe in you.
Now go kill some birds.
Comments