The Gruesome Cartoon Film Ending That Haunts Audiences
Among all the adult-oriented cartoon movies I’ve ever watched, no other has lingered in my mind as much as the fear-filled conclusion of a explicitly bloody and overwhelingly transgressive 2022 movie The Unicorn Wars.
In 2015’s, this Spanish writer-director crafted a dark, bleak , often savage world that included several minor , forlorn twinges of optimism.
Although The Unicorn Wars appears as it originated from a desire to advance animation further, the filmmaker stated that it was more an effort to convey a universal, multicultural message concerning “the shared root of every conflict.”
That message is expressed via a band of colorful pastel bears , openly inspired by a well-known series of cuddly figures.
Being raised in a society focused on aggression and the military-industrial complex, numerous these animals are fixated on killing the mythical beasts, because of a religious scripture which states the bears they were once masters of the woodland, before the horned beings expelled them.
A few haven’t fully accepted the indoctrination, and choose to sample drugs and mate in the woods.
Unlike their cuddly equivalents, these vivid animals display genitals , clear sex drives.
For a certain particularly cruel, skeptical animal, Bluey, the conflict with the unicorns turns into a route to control — and especially to supremacy above his more tender, nicer brother Tubby.
Bluey is a bully , an obvious psychopath , and when horror takes over his squad and kills his comrades sequentially, he grabs more and more control for himself, in increasingly violent, harmful methods.
Meanwhile, the horned creatures are suffering their own horror, as an expanding, harmful creature in their woods.
“In the early stages, it feels like a humorous movie,” the filmmaker commented. “Yet it evolves into a more dramatic and sorrowful film. And by the end, it transforms into a horror film.”
The Unicorn Wars begins feeling a bit like among the whimsical films from a legendary filmmaker, which find a mischievous joy in permitting cartoon characters curse, shoot each other, or sex each other up.
Afterward it evolves into closer to a darker work by that same director, with increasingly graphic violence and a tangible relation to the actual tragedy of battle.
Ultimately, it’s an outright theatrical horror bloodbath.
The terror that makes the film a Halloween-friendly viewing starts much sooner than that description suggests.
Unicorn Wars is ideal for the hardcore fans of gore, for enthusiasts of intense movies who wish to view a movie they’ve never viewed until now, and can endure a plot that offers absolutely no punches.
See it in a dimly lit space with no disturbances, and the finale will dig under your skin and take up residence there.
How to view: Available for streaming or buying on multiple online services.
