The Scariest Halloween Movie Ever Made
As Halloween comes again this year we look forward to all things that frighten us and give us an adrenaline rush of fear: zombie costumes, horror movies, fake blood and guts, blood dripping knives, axes, chain saws, violence. We like to pretend to do things that we would never dream of acting out in real life. Yet, we subject billions of animals annually to the very things that terrify us the most every time we support and contribute to the use of animals for food.
A truck that carries away unused body parts of cows at a Toronto slaughterhouse leaks blood. | Louise Jorgensen
Animals who are trapped in our farming and food systems are regularly subjected to the very things that nightmares are made of. From conception, to the time they are killed, most live a life filled with dread and fear of humans. To them we are the monsters that we feature in our own horror movies.
Let’s take a look at the life of a cow on a dairy farm.
Cows on a dairy farm in upstate New York never leave the filthy barn | Louise Jorgensen
Forced Conception
On dairy farms, females are forcibly impregnated via artificial insemination so that they are in a continual state of pregnancy and birth to keep up with the demand for their flesh and breast milk. They are constrained while the farmer pushes his arm up inside her to deposit semen. Dairy farmers refer to these contraptions as “rape racks”. This will be forced upon her over and over until her body can take no more.
Farmer inseminates cows on a small dairy farm | Jo-anne McArthur | WeAnimalsMedia.org
Males on dairy farms, kept for their semen, are manually ejaculated by farm hands - sometimes using electric shocks.
Males, kept for their semen, are manually ejaculated by farm hands.
Baby Abduction
For parents, the worst scenario they can imagine is to have their child kidnapped and to never know what happened to them. But this is exactly what we subject millions of gentle mothers to every time we drink cow’s milk. For 9 months, just like us, the cow will carry her baby inside her. And just like us she will generally give birth to one baby. Cows are well known for their strong maternal instincts and will fight to protect her precious baby from danger. But it’s useless to fight the human hands that steal her newborn calf shortly after birth. Cows have been known to hide their newborn from farmers and to bellow for days or weeks after her baby is stolen. Her heartbreaking cries can be heard throughout the night. A mother’s worst nightmare.
A newborn calf on a dairy farm taken from his mother at birth | Jo-anne McArthur | WeAnimalsMedia.org
The Calf
For calves who had the misfortune of being born on dairy farms, they will only know the nightmare that awaits them. These calves will never know the gentle protection of their mother. They rarely know the joy of romping and playing in the sun and grass under their protective mother’s watchful eye. Instead, they are often viewed and treated as mere waste.
Depending on the sex of the calf, there are three frightening outlooks for the calf after he or she is abducted from their mother.
If the calf is a male he is deemed useless by the farmer and is very often killed at birth.
If the calf is male he may be sent to auction with umbilical cord still attached, to be sold to the highest bidder for his flesh. They generally sell for just a few dollars.
If the calf is female she may be kept in a hutch, alone, to eventually replace her mother. They are kept isolated and alone, often dying in extreme weather conditions.
A pen filled with days-old male calves from the dairy industry bawl for their mothers at a “Livestock” auction | Louise Jorgensen
The Mother
Just like us, cows must give birth in order to produce breast milk. Mother cows are forced into a continual cycle of pregnancy and birth in order to keep her breast milk production flowing. Each time is a devastating loss for these emotional mothers, who often become depressed and despondent. At about 5-7 years old and five or six cycles of birth and loss, she too will be sent to auction and/or to slaughter at a mere fraction of her natural 25-year lifespan.
Cows from the dairy industry wreath in pain from engorged udders at a “Livestock” auction | Louise Jorgensen
The Slaughterhouse
Eventually, all cows from the dairy industry end up at the scariest place on earth: the slaughterhouse. Cows are known for their strong sense of smell and can detect danger up to 10KM away. Imagine their terror as they near the slaughterhouse, the smell of death and blood as heavy as the dark energy that accompanies it.
Cows from the dairy industry arrive at a Toronto slaughterhouse
The terror in their eyes is evident. They panic and try to escape the metal walls that hold them captive but there is no escape. The slaughterhouse workers show no empathy toward these terrified mothers as they prod them into the windowless kill factory. They merely look right through them. After they enter the slaughterhouse and the door is closed, the only sound that is heard is that of the machines that cut them into pieces and spit them out in boxes at the other end.
Workers try to hide the violence from Toronto Cow Save attendees.
Confinement. Violence. Sexual assault. Child abduction. Bloody metal tools. Apathy. Aren’t these the things that we fear most and what we base our scariest Halloween horror movies on? Yet, every day we willingly inflict this terrifying reality on billions of farmed animals around the world. Animal agriculture hides this reality from the public because they know that we would stop supporting them. We have a choice. We have a voice. Please be theirs.
Animal agriculture is a real-life horror movie. The scariest ever made.