The Gruesome Animated Movie Conclusion That Lingers Viewers
Out of every mature animated films I’ve personally viewed, no other has lingered in my mind quite like the dread-soaked ending of the viscerally violent as well as highly provocative 2022 movie The Unicorn Wars.
Back in the year 2015, this Spain-based writer-director developed a grim, melancholy and often savage world that included several minor , forlorn hints of optimism.
While The Unicorn Wars feels like it came from a drive to expand the medium even more, the director clarified that it was actually a try to communicate a widespread, multicultural message about “the common origin of all wars.”
That message is communicated through a squad of vividly colored bears , openly modeled after a famous line of lovable figures.
Growing up in a society focused on warmongering and the military-industrial complex, many of the bears are fixated on slaughtering unicorns, thanks to a holy book that claims them they were once rulers of the forest, until these creatures expelled them.
Others have not completely accepted the propaganda, , prefer to experiment with drugs or mate in the forest.
Unlike their cuddly equivalents, these vivid animals display genitals , definite libidos.
For a certain especially vicious, cynical bear, the bear named Bluey, the conflict with unicorns transforms into a path to power — and particularly to authority above his more tender, more compassionate sibling the bear Tubby.
Bluey acts as a tormentor , a seeming psychopath , and while horror dominates his squad and takes his comrades sequentially, he seizes progressively control personally, via progressively gory, damaging approaches.
At the same time, the unicorns are experiencing their own nightmare, in the form of an expanding, harmful creature in their forest.
“In the early stages, it seems like a humorous movie,” the director said. “But then it turns into a more serious and sorrowful movie. And by the end, it transforms into a terrifying movie.”
Unicorn Wars commences similar to one of the more playful films by a legendary animator, which find a mischievous joy in permitting animated figures swear, fire weapons, or have intimate relations.
Afterward it evolves into more akin to a more grim film by that same director, featuring progressively graphic violence and a tangible relation to the real tragedy of battle.
In the finale, it’s a full-on theatrical horror bloodbath.
The fear that turns this a Halloween-friendly watch kicks in much sooner than one might expect.
Unicorn Wars is suited for the most dedicated fans of gore, for fans of extreme cinema who want to view a film they haven’t ever watched previously, and are able to withstand a narrative which delivers unflinching brutality.
Watch it with the lights off without any distractions, and that ending will burrow into your mind and linger.
Where to watch: Available for streaming or buying on several digital platforms.
