12 Horrific Movie Animal Deaths You Haven't Recovered From

Let's all admit it, sometimes you prefer animals over people and there is nothing wrong. Animals are mostly non-judgemental, non-emotionally crippled and non-war mongering. Apart from cats. Inevitably, sometimes their deaths can thus impact you more than when Thomas J died from so many bee-stings, and that was hard day for everyone. Unfortunately, while animal deaths are usually restricted to narrative terms in films, some productions - like Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy - see reprimands for their treatment of four-legged supporting stars. And that is intolerable, particularly when the death toll is as high as the twenty seven creatures who died after filming was completed in New Zealand. That isn't to say that Jackson's movies are the only films to have some whispers of animal cruelty. The Lion King anyone? That Disney classic was rife with animal on animal cruelty that destroyed the happiness of children across the globe and which has always raised questions over how those animators could sleep at night. The reaction to the deaths of the animals on Jackson's apparent watch is also exactly why films like The Lion King and Old Yeller exist. Just because they don't have real people feelings doesn't mean that there isn't something stunningly affecting about a film killing off an animal character. They're often even more traumatising than when human characters get the chop...