Did they actually film rats being shot? When the oversized rodents are attacking the house, it seriously looks like they just blew away some rats with a pellet gun. Whats done is done so i don't care either way but if they did, is that one of the reasons it hasn't been released? Maybe PETA is preventing this from being released on dvd haha. Any thoughts?
shareYou are somewhat correct: The story has it that paintball pellets were used to simulate the rats being shot, but it looks like some of them really are being harmed. And in 2006 social sensibilities any time you use animals on camera for a movie you need a disclaimer stating that none were harmed or exploited during production. I am not sure that FOTG actually "snuffed" rats on-camera, but they certainly did not have much say in how they were used and don't look like they enjoyed being splatted with the paint.
shareI totally agree with you. I just saw it for the first time a couple of months ago. I went in thinking that it was going to be a cheesy, but at the same time, a fun flick. A soon as the first rat was shot i thought, "umm...these rats really look like they're being killed on camera." Whether or not they were killed or paint was used, it looked completely real. I was a bit shocked.
shareBert I. Gordon used a pellet gun, not a paintball gun. And when the rats are drowning, they are being held underwater by the tail, and actually die on camera. But who cares? They're vermin!
sharechrist they could kill humans on camera and there would be less fuss than stupid rats being harmed. i wonder how many people who are whining about this use products or medical treatments that involve animal experimentation.
shareWell, so far there are a grand total of four of us "whining" about this and I'm sure there would be much more of a fuss if "they", in fact, killed humans on camera. I, for one (I can't speak for the other three) do not use products that involve animal experimentation. So your comment manages to be ridiculous on at least two levels (possibly three) in just two sentences. Congratulations!
shareIt seemed pretty obvious to me while recently viewing this film for the first time that rats were both shot and drowned and tommarine28 states as fact that they were. While reasonable arguments can be made justifying the harmful use of animals in medical experimentation, etc...it is my contention that harming or killing any animal in order to get a movie made is inexcusable.
tommarine28's comment that they're vermin, so who cares, is an ignorant one. Lots of people care. There's a big difference between the types of rats that run around in the sewers and projects that carry diseases and are properly considered to be vermin and the type that are used in laboratories, trained to work in movies, and kept as pets by many people. I, personally, believe that rats make better pets than mice, gerbils and even hamsters, but that's beside the point, as is my assertion that this particular movie didn't warrant the swatting of a fly.
Regardless of the film's particular quality, no animal should be harmed, much less killed in the course of it's creation.
I agree, I'm not a "bleeding heart liberal whiney PETA" person either (and I'm not trying to insult any bleeding heart liberals or PETA members either).
I'm not fond of rats at all but I know people who have them as pets and love them like a dog or a cat. I have a guinea pig I inherited from a friend going to college. It's a rodent; I've grown a bit attached. The thing is, animals feel pain. They may not have the capacity for reason or logic that humans do but they do feel pain and they suffer when they are harmed. I think that causing that kind of pain and suffering to anything or anyone for the sake of entertainment purposes is inhumane. I certainly wouldn't hold my cat under water and watch it struggle for a laugh (or the guinea pig for that matter). I would say that it's a normal and, in my opinion, good response to be at least shocked to find out that a movie crew did this to animals (or people for whomever asked about humans being killed getting that much attention) for entertainment.
I know my friends who have rats for pets would think so too.
If you like this type of movie then I'm sure you'll remember they did the same thing on "Kingdom of the spiders" where they killed a lot by stepping on them and there's even a scene where a lady throws a huge pot of boiling water on them, maybe they figured since they are just insects (ok, arachnids) it wouldn't matter that much. I realize we do kill insects everyday and I'm not trying to sound like someone from PETA but this goes to show how back then there really was a lot of animal abuse on the movie sets, mainly the reason why laws where created to protect them.
Aren't tarantulas also considered pets by some people? they do sell them at pet stores.
Ummm folks? We're talking about Food of the Gods, remember.
One of the worst films in history directed by one of the
worst directors in film history. Not exactly the most
scrupulous "film" on the planet, and we all know that when
we sit down to watch it. So, unless any of you know how to
resurrect rats, perhaps it's time to let this go. And if you
do know how to resurrect rats, it's time you shifted your
attention to resurrecting people, too, for the good of mankind.
Bert I. Gordon hasn't directed a movie in nearly 20 years.
I think the world's animals are safe from his terror now.
Relax already.
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Ummm, if rats being harmed or killed bothers you do us all a favor and never watch Cannibal Holocaust.
shareCaught the movie on my DVR from one of the Encore channels last week. I looked at a lot of the shooting scenes and for the most part it looks like they are squirted with fake blood. Frame by frame you can even sometimes make out the streak of fake blood traveling before it hits the rat. Sometimes you can also see that a lot of the blood bounces off the rat and there is no wound undernieth.
The squirt is strong enough to stun the rat and knock it down.
The drowning scenes look like they were done for real though. I don't know.
To those saying "they are only rats". I have no problem with animals dying for food, animals dying because they are a health risk or because they are vermin.
The problem is killing in cruel ways (I think deliberatly drowning rats would is cruel) and killing for a movie.
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In an American natural history documentary, a director had his film crew 'stampede' a pack of lemmings over a cliff edge because he read somewhere that lemmings jump over cliff edges.
That was hundreds, possibly a couple thousand lemmings, caught on film, running over a cliff edge. It was also a differant breed of lemming that 'naturally' does it. Do lemmings really jump of cliffs or is that an 'urban' myth?
Is this worse because it was so many? Or because the director made you believe that they did for real?
I don't think I phrased the question right, but you understand what I mean?
To die is to live, to live is to die
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Yes they really killed the rats, no effects were used in the demise of these animals. It is the reason I searched for this film on IMDB.
shareThe funny thing is that I get more tired of all the look-how-cold-hearted-I-am nerds who desperately try to be the first ones to yell their "Who cares???" than of the new breed of outraged sensitives who get angry about animal deaths.
Cold-heartedness was the way to get admired by goth-chicks in the mid-80s, but today it's really just a sign of puberty blooming...
Read KILLING FOR CULTURE and grow up, will you?
The rats were not shot by pellet guns, they were shot by paint balls. I'm sure they got stunned or knocked out, but not killed. As for the drowning scene, it does look like some of them died. If you watch closely, you can see a rat floating dead on the water. Also the electrice fence scene when the rats run back you can see some dead rats laying on the ground. These are real,not models.
shareThe rats were not shot by pellet guns, they were shot by paint balls. I'm sure they got stunned or knocked out, but not killed. As for the drowning scene, it does look like some of them died. If you watch closely, you can see a rat floating dead on the water. Also the electrice fence scene when the rats run back you can see some dead rats laying on the ground. These are real,not models.
shareI could understand a person going to jail for killing endangered species, like an Eagle, Bear, or rare animal is understandable.
I could understand pet animals, like dogs, cats, birds, and other types mammals or birds.
But these are rats...you all realize rats are vermin and disease-ridden animals. They're a nuissance to pretty much every society on face of the earth who wants rats running through their houses or even living in cages.
There shouldn't be anything wrong with killing rats...animal rights stance of things are going to far....people shouldn't be so buddy-buddy about an animal causes so much devestation, responsible for black plague, and other massive diseases.
I think there shouldn't be anything wrong with killing humans either... being animals that cause so much devastation, responsible for wars and other massive voluntary acts of destruction.
share
Domesticated pet rats aren't disease carriers any more than pet dogs or pet cats. They're actually very responsive and clean pets. They can learn to do tricks and respond to their names. I'll never forget the day a pet shop owner demonstrated to me how different they are from mice by taking the mice's wheel and moving it to the rat cage. Rather than running on it, like the mice happily do, the baby rats immediately ran to it and examined it, spinning it from the outside and checking it out thoroughly. They're amazingly smart for such small animals. It probably explains how their vermin cousins are so durable.
The only bad thing about them is how short their lifespan is.
So yeah, I was pretty incensed about the rat-killing. Paint-balls don't come in rat-sizes, for one thing. Also, if a paint-ball blows away part of a rat's head, including his eye, it's gonna hurt and possibly kill him just as effectively as a pellet-gun. At least one rat suffered that exact fate.
And the reason I know those rats weren't "vermin" is because (a) they wouldn't use sewer rats for fear of their own safety, (b) sewer rats behave differently, the rats in this flick were clearly just curious about the miniature houses and such and (c) the rats in this movie were clean and groomed, not scruffy like sewer rats. Domesticated rats are obsessively clean and always grooming themselves, which is why they look so sleek in movies when they should look scruffy.
o yeah, I was pretty incensed about the rat-killing. Paint-balls don't come in rat-sizes, for one thing. Also, if a paint-ball blows away part of a rat's head, including his eye, it's gonna hurt and possibly kill him just as effectively as a pellet-gun. At least one rat suffered that exact fate.
I don't think they used paintballs. They had some sort of sprayer to skirt out red goo onto the rats. The rats react much in the same way a cat would react to being sprayed with water. But yes, I did see the scene where the red goo gets in the rats eye.
Polls... One of the Main Stream Media's Jedi Mind Tricks.
Um, are you aware of how much destruction and disease WE are responsible for? I think we are the biggest blight on this planet. Rats are nothing compared to humans.
And, learn to use grammar and punctuation. It's a great invention!