This probably could have gone in the next installment of Oh, the Bad Movies… but I really felt like I needed to say something sooner rather than later about Paris Police 1900 (2021), lest you fall into the trap I did when it popped up on my suggested shows list on Amazon and you make the mistake of watching it.
I will admit that I actually could not get through the first episode, so maybe it is a good show, but I’m never going to know because I couldn’t sit through all the GRAPHIC animal cruelty in the first 30 minutes of the first episode. Call me soft, whatever, I don’t give a fuck — animal cruelty as a plot device is one of those lines in my personal sandbox that once is crossed, fuck you, I’m out.
You could have the most amazing costumes in your show, or even just Adrien Brody in a towel, but the second animal cruelty enters the chat, nope. We are done.
Since the show is in French, as are most of the articles about it, and my French is total merde, maybe it’s plastered all over in French that no animals were harmed in the making of the show, but the dozen or so reviews I found in English all pointed out some level of “Woah, dial the animal abuse back, bro” with a lot of reviewers very concerned that since it looked really real, maybe it wasn’t just the magic of cinema. I did find one reference on TV Tropes that the British broadcast of the show had a big statement in English that no animals were harmed, but there’s nothing like that on Amazon’s version. And let me just say, ok, the whole slaughtering a piglet on stage could have been filmed cleverly and the pig was fine, but that rabbit that was obviously shot and then skinned on camera was most definitely not fine.
Which is a damn shame because the costumes were really great.
Have you watched Paris Police 1900 (2021)? Maybe you could get past the animal abuse and would like to write a guest post about the costumes!
Thanks for the heads-up! That’s a solid NOPE for me.
I watched all of it, it was pretty graphic in terms of cruelty full stop. The costumes continued to look good, but it was not a hugely pleasant experience.
Animal cruelty or even death from natural causes render a show or movie unwatchable for me. May I also take a moment to mention that I am so dreadfully tired of the unbiquitous haughty, we-mean- business and boy-do-we-take-ourselves-seriously poses and facial expressions on the cast on every single ad for every single crime show set between 1066 and 2023, produced anywhere, by anyone, for the last 30 years?
That comment about the stances and expressions of every crime show ad from every era is so perfect and to the point that I must comment just to thank you “susan l eiffert” for putting into words something which always bugs me! Bravo!
Sarah, thank you so much for this warning! I can’t take animal cruelty on film. I will definitely avoid this one.
Thank you for the warning! My husband is very sensitive to cruelty to animals and we won’t watch this now!
Thank you for the warning! I hate seeing animal cruelty – especially against rabbits. Now I know to give this a pass
Anything I watch, I try to vet first for things like rape, bones being broken, or animal cruelty. I’m pretty sure I vetted this and noticed the animal abuse and said no way.
Shout-out to “Does the Dog Die?”, a crowd-sourced database of warnings for this sort of thing that will help you avoid it. :)
https://www.doesthedogdie.com/