MovieChat Forums > Neighbors (1981) Discussion > The vivisection scene

The vivisection scene


I sure wish this was on dvd with subtitles. In the scene where earl locks vic and ramona in the basement,you hear something that sounds like a buzzsaw and i wonder if vic was yelling "please", or "fleas?" Could he be yelling fleas becouse earls wife said he could be an escaped vivisectionist and he's doing something to the dog?

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No. It's "Please." Vivisectionists haven't just worked on dogs. There were rumors of Nazis performing vivisection experiments on concentration camp prisoners during WWII. And, it's known that, while vivisection may or may not have been included, they did perform a lot of horrific medical experiments on living prisoners. It's another cryptic reference to Vic's possible Nazi associations.

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As far as I can tell, Vic's babbling "Please...you promised me!" I always felt that they were play-acting some sort of suicide pact. After all, it was just a trick to get Earl to open the door and neither of them were harmed in the least.

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Vivisection is an outdated term for disection.

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Vivisection is an outdated term for disection.


No, it's not. Vivisection and dissection are two different things. "VIV"-isection -- Viv; from the latin root "Vivi", meaning "alive", and "section" from the root "sectio" meaning "to cut", or "cutting". Vivisections are dissections, or other forms of surgery, carried out on living organisms. In other words, the incisions are done while the organism is still alive.

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