That Gory Cartoon Movie Ending That Haunts Audiences
Among every mature animated films I have personally viewed, no other has remained with me quite like the terror-laced finale of the explicitly bloody and deeply subversive film from 2022 Unicorn Wars.
In 2015’s, this Spain-based writer-director created a dark, melancholy and often savage universe that included several minor , forlorn twinges of hope.
Although Unicorn Wars appears as it came from an impulse to advance the medium even more, the director explained that it was rather a try to express a universal, cross-cultural message concerning “the common origin of every conflict.”
That message is expressed by means of a band of vividly colored bears , openly inspired by a famous line of lovable figures.
Being raised in a culture centered on militarism and the defense industry, a lot of these animals are fixated on slaughtering unicorns, thanks to a religious scripture that claims the bears they used to be rulers of the woodland, until the unicorns drove them out.
Some haven’t fully bought into the propaganda, and choose to experiment with narcotics and mate in the forest.
Unlike their friendly equivalents, these bright beings display sexual organs and obvious urges.
For one especially vicious, cynical bear, the character Bluey, the conflict against the unicorns turns into a route to control — and especially to supremacy over his more tender, nicer brother the character Tubby.
This bear is a bully and an obvious psychopath , and when fear dominates his group and takes his comrades sequentially, he grabs more and more power personally, via progressively violent, destructive ways.
Meanwhile, the unicorns are suffering their own nightmare, through an expanding, harmful creature in their habitat.
“Initially, it appears as a comedy,” the filmmaker commented. “But then it becomes a more dramatic and sorrowful movie. And ultimately, it transforms into a scary feature.”
Unicorn Wars starts out resembling one of the most quirky features from a renowned animator, which find a wicked pleasure in letting drawn beings curse, engage in violence, or engage sexually.
Afterward it turns into more akin to a more grim movie from the same director, with increasingly visual gore , a palpable relation to genuine suffering of battle.
In the finale, it is a complete Grand Guignol carnage.
The fear which makes the film a perfect Halloween viewing kicks in well before than that description suggests.
Unicorn Wars is one for the devoted fans of gore, for fans of graphic films who desire to see a movie they have not viewed until now, and who can handle a plot which delivers absolutely no punches.
See it in a dimly lit space with no disturbances, and that ending will burrow deep within you and linger.
Where to watch: Available for digital rental or sale on various online services.
