My pulse rate immediately jumped during the first scene of Curt Johnson's documentary Your Mommy Kills Animals. A woman wearing a fur coat is brutally assaulted. I breathed a sigh of relief to see that it was "only" a commercial, but before my blood could settle, the next scene shows a dog being even more brutally assaulted. That footage, sadly, is real, allowing no lowering of the blood pressure.

And so it goes throughout the film. If, like me, you didn't know beforehand the difference between animal rights, animal liberation, and animal welfare, you certainly will by the time the end credits roll. Far beyond a simple educational primer, though, the doc drops you in the middle of a very contentious issue and pushes every hot button imaginable. You're simply not allowed to not react. I found my emotions rolling between heated anger and utter disgust, yet never felt manipulated by the film itself. Instead, director Johnson presents opposing viewpoints in a fairly evenhanded fashion. The film is not entirely without its own bias -- which becomes more apparent upon a second viewing -- but you're allowed to draw your own conclusions without feeling like the filmmakers are shoving you into a predetermined corner.

The basic framing device is the trial of the so-called "SHAC 7," a group of six animal rights activists accused of violating federal anti-terrorism laws by encouraging direct action protests on their web site. The group was formed as part of a worldwide campaign to stop animal testing at the Huntingdon Life Sciences laboratory -- really, to shut down the company. Two members are interviewed, and in their appearances, interspersed throughout the film, they appear calm, kind, peaceful and entirely reasonable. How could they pose any kind of threat?

Those on both sides of the animal rights issue will find much to fume over in Your Mommy Kills Animals, Curt Johnson's in-depth, eye-opening examination of the movement, dubbed in 2005 by the FBI as the nation's number one domestic terrorist threat. That designation was apparently the motivation for Johnson's film, yet it's far from the only topic tackled, as the director also spends considerable time and analysis on PETA, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), animal-testing corporation Huntington, and – most fascinatingly – the touchy internal differences between radical animal rights advocates and more moderate animal welfare supporters. They're all highly charged issues of methods and morality, and ones that Johnson refuses to shy away from or takes sides over, challenging claims by all talking-head factions in a manner that doesn't completely obscure his own sympathies (which seem to lie with animal welfare backers), but which nonetheless give his rather comprehensive doc enough even-handedness to elevate it above propaganda.

Titled after a gruesome PETA comic distributed to kids (featuring a cartoon cover image of a '50s homemaker stabbing a bunny), Your Mommy Kills Animals offers only curt history of the cause's roots in nineteenth-century England (where it supposedly led to child welfare legislation), as well as its modern inception in the '70s by a British activist whose unsuccessful peaceful protests soon led to aggressive strategies. Johnson's main interest is today's state of affairs, and violence (or the lack thereof) is certainly one of the chief points of contention, with numerous speakers decrying the FBI's "terrorist" label as an attempt to slander what is "by and large the most nonviolent political-social justice movement ever." Or at least so claims Kevin Kjonaas, the former president of Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC) – a subset of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) – and one of six SHAC members prosecuted by the federal government for inciting violence. "They're not Osama Bin-F--king-Laden," says a former PETA board member in defense of the accused. If, however, the ALF's organizational structure – in which autonomous cells carry out militant acts under the banner of a loosely engaged central body – doesn't bring to mind that of Al Qaeda, Johnson's doc nonetheless makes sure to illustrate the less-than-savory fearmongering tactics employed by many ALF members.

That provocative title is taken from a leaflet handed out by PETA activists to children arriving at performances of The Nutcracker accompanied by fur-clad mothers. It's also the title of a documentary that has just been picked up for distribution. Filmmaker Curt Johnson was inspired to explore the animal rights movement by "a post-9/11 FBI alert identifying animal rights activists as the number one domestic terror threat." Johnson interviewed activists and detractors alike, seeking out as many points of view as possible. Variety's John Anderson hailed it as "a miraculously evenhanded treatment of a snarlingly divisive debate" when it played at HotDocs. "There are no good guys or bad guys in this propulsive film," Anderson wrote, "but there's enough in the way of odd characters and bad behavior to amuse and inform auds who only marginally care about the content." Other reviews have been equally positive.

Your Mommy Kills Animals sold out screenings recently at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, playing as part of their "Documentaries on the Edge" series. At the festival, which continues through July 23, programmer Mitch Davis announced that distributor Halo-8 Entertainment had secured worldwide theatrical and home video rights to the film, beating out "numerous other buyers." You can see the trailer at Halo-8's web site, while the film's MySpace page has additional pictures, videos, a ringtone and merchandise. The best part? You don't have to wait long to see it -- though I recommend you don't wear fur to the theater. Halo-8 plans to release Your Mommy Kills Animals theatrically in September; a DVD will follow in November.