That Gruesome Animated Movie Conclusion That Haunts Audiences
Among every mature cartoon movies I have personally watched, nothing has remained with me quite like the terror-laced ending of the explicitly bloody and overwhelingly transgressive 2022 movie The Unicorn Wars.
Back in the year 2015, this Spanish writer-director created a grim, bleak and frequently brutal universe that included several minor , forlorn glimmers of optimism.
Although Unicorn Wars seems like it came from an impulse to push animation further, the director clarified that it was rather a try to express a universal, multicultural theme concerning “the mutual source of each battle.”
That idea is communicated through a squad of vividly colored bears , openly modeled after a well-known line of lovable figures.
Maturing in a community built around militarism as well as the military-industrial complex, many of the bears are fixated on slaughtering unicorns, due to a religious scripture which states them they were once kings of the woodland, before the unicorns expelled them.
Others have not completely bought into the brainwashing, , would rather try out drugs or mate in the forest.
In contrast to their gentle equivalents, these colorful critters display genitals , definite urges.
For a certain especially vicious, cynical bear, Bluey, the war against unicorns becomes a path to power — and specifically to authority over his softer, kinder brother the character Tubby.
The character is a bully and an obvious psychopath , and while fear overcomes his squad and claims his comrades individually, he seizes progressively control for himself, through ever more gory, destructive ways.
Simultaneously, these mythical beings are experiencing their own nightmare, through a spreading, destructive monster in their habitat.
“In the early stages, it feels like a lighthearted film,” the filmmaker stated. “However it evolves into a more serious and sad film. And ultimately, it’s a horror film.”
Unicorn Wars begins feeling a bit like one of the more quirky features from a renowned animator, that discover a mischievous joy in allowing cartoon characters swear, shoot each other, or sex each other up.
Then it turns into something more like a darker movie from that creator, with increasingly visual gore , a tangible relation to the real suffering of battle.
In the finale, it’s a complete Grand Guignol carnage.
The fear that makes this a perfect Halloween movie starts much sooner than indicated.
Unicorn Wars is ideal for the hardcore fans of gore, for fans of extreme cinema who desire to view something they haven’t ever viewed until now, and are able to withstand a plot which delivers no restraint.
Watch it with the lights off without any distractions, and that ending will crawl into your mind and stay with you.
Availability: Offered for rental or purchase on multiple digital platforms.
