Pittsburgh Monkey Labs Targeted in New PETA Video From ‘American Psycho’ Director Mary Harron
For Immediate Release:
May 21, 2025
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
In a new, hair-raising PETA video, horror director Mary Harron exposes other violent predators—experimenters who mutilate and kill monkeys in cruel laboratory tests—in time for the 25th anniversary of her cult classic American Psycho.
The terrifying TV spot debuts today in Pittsburgh, targeting University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) laboratories, and will run on Adult Swim, MTV, and TV Land through May 27.
The video shows a human strapped to a chair in a barred prison cell. A circular metal device has been screwed into the victim’s head, immobilizing it. A man in a lab coat and surgical mask enters. Pupils dilate. A needle plunges. Screams ring out as a power drill bores into the skull, and there’s a sudden cut to an image of a real monkey in a real laboratory enduring the same kind of invasive torment as monkeys do in laboratories at Pitt and across the country.
“I’m working with PETA to call for an end to the use of monkeys and other animals in laboratories, and I hope this video shines a light on the immense pain that experimenters inflict on tens of millions of animals every year,” Harron says.
PETA released an undercover investigation into Pitt in 2017, revealing monkeys with untreated wounds and others so traumatized by imprisonment in tiny cages they circled and paced repeatedly.
A recent PETA study analyzing animal welfare violations at the 20 universities nationwide receiving the most funding from the National Institutes of Health identified Pitt as the third-worst offender, with 28 violations in two years. In one incident, a monkey escaped and was injured by another, requiring the partial amputation of four toes. On numerous occasions animals died or became so ill they had to be euthanized after they were left without food or water.
In nature, monkeys form deep emotional bonds with their family members. Those born in laboratories are often torn from their anguished mothers, sometimes within just days of birth, and confined to barren steel cages.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
