The Grisly Cartoon Film Ending That Haunts Viewers
Among all the mature cartoon movies I’ve ever watched, nothing has lingered in my mind as much as the dread-soaked ending of the explicitly bloody as well as highly provocative 2022 movie The Unicorn Wars.
In 2015’s, the Spanish writer-director created a grim, bleak and often savage universe with some tiny , desolate glimmers of optimism.
While The Unicorn Wars appears as it came from an impulse to push the medium further, the filmmaker clarified that it was actually an effort to express a widespread, cross-cultural theme about “the shared root of all wars.”
That idea is conveyed via a band of colorful pastel bears , openly based on a famous line of cuddly characters.
Growing up in a culture focused on militarism and the war machine, a lot of these animals are consumed by exterminating unicorns, due to a holy book that claims them they were once kings of the woods, before the horned beings expelled them.
Others have not completely fallen for the brainwashing, and would rather experiment with drugs and mate outdoors.
Unlike their friendly equivalents, these vivid animals display genitals and obvious urges.
For a certain especially vicious, pessimistic creature, the character Bluey, the conflict with the unicorns transforms into a route to control — and especially to dominance over his more tender, kinder brother the character Tubby.
Bluey acts as a tormentor and an obvious sociopath , and when terror dominates his squad and kills his teammates sequentially, he seizes more and more control on his own behalf, via progressively gory, damaging approaches.
Simultaneously, the horned creatures are enduring their own horror, through a growing, harmful creature in their forest.
“In the early stages, it appears as a comedy,” the filmmaker commented. “Yet it turns into a more serious and sorrowful movie. And ultimately, it’s a horror film.”
The Unicorn Wars commences similar to one of the more whimsical features from an iconic animator, that discover a wicked pleasure in allowing drawn beings curse, engage in violence, or engage sexually.
Subsequently it evolves into more akin to a more grim film from that director, featuring progressively explicit brutality , a tangible relation to the actual horror of war.
By the end, it’s a full-on Grand Guignol massacre.
The fear that turns the film an ideal spooky-season watch kicks in much sooner than that description suggests.
Unicorn Wars is ideal for the hardcore fans of gore, for lovers of graphic films who want to watch a movie they’ve never watched previously, and who can handle a narrative that offers no restraint.
View it in a dimly lit space with no disturbances, and the finale will burrow into your mind and linger.
Where to watch: Available for streaming or buying on various streaming sites.
