Some Vegans Were Harmed in the Watching of This Movie
Inside a dark theater in Midtown Manhattan, Allison McCulloch watched 'Kraven the Hunter,' an origin story for the obscure Spider-Man villain, while jotting notes on a white piece of paper smaller than a Post-it.
Fur clothing.
Taxidermied animals.
Characters eating steak.
McCulloch is the Roger Ebert of vegans, a dedicated cinephile who cares as much as anyone about acting and cinematography — and more than almost anyone about onscreen portrayals of dairy, poultry and beef.
In the short reviews she writes for the app Letterboxd, she includes her overall critique as well as 'vegan alerts,' flagging signs of animal products in a one-woman quest to highlight animal welfare onscreen, even in details most viewers would overlook.
'People might think a glass of milk is innocuous,' she said. 'It's not. It's full of violence.'
McCulloch has documented her opinion on 24,082 movies on her Letterboxd account, putting her in the top 100 out of the app's more than 18 million members. Movies starring animals are almost a lock for vegan-friendly ratings, with films like 'Flow' and 'Kung Fu Panda 4' getting four stars.
'Kraven the Hunter,' about a criminal-tracking vigilante played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, flopped by traditional measures ('incomprehensible plotting and dodgy one-liners,' Robert Daniels wrote in The New York Times). But it worked on some level for McCulloch, who was surprised by how it framed Kraven as a kind of conservationist who shares a supernatural connection with the creatures he encounters, and hunts criminals instead. She even gave the movie one 'vegan point' for Kraven's decision to not shoot a lion.
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