The Gruesome Cartoon Movie Ending That Haunts Audiences
Among all the mature cartoon movies I’ve ever watched, no other has stuck with me as much as the fear-filled finale of the graphically gory as well as deeply subversive 2022 movie The Unicorn Wars.
In the year 2015, the Spain-based writer-director created a dark, melancholy , frequently brutal world with several minor , forlorn twinges of optimism.
Although The Unicorn Wars seems like it came from a desire to push animation even more, the filmmaker explained that it was actually an effort to convey a widespread, multicultural theme about “the shared root of each battle.”
This theme is communicated via a group of brightly hued teddy bears , clearly modeled after a well-known line of lovable characters.
Maturing in a culture built around aggression and the defense industry, numerous these animals are fixated on slaughtering the mythical beasts, because of a holy book that tells them they previously were rulers of the forest, until the horned beings forced them out.
A few did not entirely bought into the propaganda, and prefer to sample substances or fornicate in the woods.
Unlike their gentle equivalents, these colorful critters have visible genitals and obvious libidos.
For one particularly cruel, cynical bear, Bluey, the conflict against unicorns transforms into a route to power — and particularly to supremacy above his more tender, more compassionate sibling Tubby.
The character acts as a tormentor , an obvious sociopath , and as terror takes over his unit and takes his fellow soldiers sequentially, he seizes increasingly control on his own behalf, via progressively gory, harmful methods.
Simultaneously, the horned creatures are suffering their own terror, as an expanding, deadly beast in their habitat.
“In the early stages, it seems like a lighthearted film,” the filmmaker commented. “Yet it evolves into a more dramatic and sad film. And in the finale, it’s a scary feature.”
The Unicorn Wars starts out feeling a bit like one of the more quirky features by a legendary animator, that discover a naughty glee in allowing cartoon characters curse, fire weapons, or have intimate relations.
Subsequently it turns into closer to a more grim film from the same artist, including ever more visual gore and a noticeable link to the actual horror of battle.
In the finale, it’s an outright Grand Guignol carnage.
The horror which makes this a Halloween-friendly watch starts much sooner than one might expect.
The Unicorn Wars is ideal for the devoted lovers of violence, for enthusiasts of intense movies who wish to watch something they’ve never viewed until now, and who can handle a story which delivers no restraint.
Watch it in a dark room free from interruptions, and the finale will crawl into your mind and linger.
Where to watch: Accessible via rental or purchase on various streaming sites.
