The Gory Animated Movie Ending That Haunts Viewers
Among all the adult-oriented cartoon movies I have ever watched, nothing has stuck with me quite like the dread-soaked ending of a explicitly bloody and overwhelingly transgressive film from 2022 Unicorn Wars.
In the year 2015, this Spain-based filmmaker created a grim, bleak , frequently brutal universe with a few small , desolate hints of optimism.
Although The Unicorn Wars feels like it stemmed from an impulse to advance animation even more, the filmmaker explained that it was actually a try to communicate a global, multicultural message concerning “the shared root of each battle.”
This theme is communicated via a squad of colorful pastel bears , obviously based on a popular series of cuddly characters.
Growing up in a culture built around warmongering and the military-industrial complex, a lot of these creatures are consumed by killing unicorns, because of a sacred text that claims the bears they were once rulers of the forest, before the unicorns expelled them.
A few have not completely bought into the indoctrination, and prefer to experiment with substances and mate in the forest.
In contrast to their cuddly equivalents, these vivid animals show genitals and definite sex drives.
For a particular notably brutal, cynical bear, Bluey, the war with the unicorns becomes a path toward dominance — and especially to authority above his more tender, more compassionate sibling the bear Tubby.
The character is a bully , an obvious psychopath , and while horror overcomes his squad and kills his fellow soldiers one by one, he takes increasingly power for himself, through ever more violent, damaging approaches.
At the same time, these mythical beings are enduring their own terror, in the form of a spreading, harmful creature in their habitat.
“At the beginning, it seems like a humorous movie,” the director commented. “Yet it becomes a more dramatic and melancholic film. And in the finale, it transforms into a horror film.”
The Unicorn Wars starts out similar to one of the more playful features from a renowned animator, which find a naughty glee in allowing drawn beings swear, engage in violence, or have intimate relations.
Then it becomes more akin to a more grim movie by that same director, featuring progressively explicit brutality and a noticeable relation to the actual tragedy of war.
Ultimately, it becomes a complete Grand Guignol massacre.
The terror that turns the film an ideal spooky-season viewing begins well before than that description suggests.
The Unicorn Wars is one for the devoted fans of gore, for fans of extreme cinema who desire to watch a movie they’ve never watched previously, and are able to withstand a story which delivers absolutely no punches.
View it in a dimly lit space free from interruptions, and the conclusion will dig under your skin and stay with you.
Availability: Offered for streaming or buying on multiple streaming sites.
