Review of Shooting Captured Insurgents

I assume that when this incredibly short film was made that it was passed off as actual footage of Spanish atrocities in their colonies. Perhaps they admitted it was a re-creation, though I doubt it as many times studios pretended to show real events (such as the execution of McKinley's assassin which was faked and passed off as real). The bottom line is that films like this helped propel the US into a war with Spain and the film footage either was used to drum up support for the war OR excuse the war after the fact....it's hard to tell since it came out in 1898 and the war was over and done with that same year. Regardless, it had its intended purpose...sleazy as it was.