The Gruesome Animated Film Ending That Haunts Viewers
Among all the mature cartoon movies I’ve personally watched, no other has remained with me quite like the terror-laced ending of the graphically gory and overwhelingly transgressive 2022 movie The Unicorn Wars.
In the year 2015, this Spain-based filmmaker crafted a dark, melancholy and frequently brutal universe that included some tiny , desolate twinges of optimism.
While Unicorn Wars appears as it stemmed from an impulse to advance the medium further, the director stated that it was rather a try to express a widespread, cross-cultural theme about “the mutual source of every conflict.”
That message is conveyed via a group of brightly hued teddy bears , openly inspired by a famous series of lovable characters.
Growing up in a society built around militarism and the military-industrial complex, numerous these animals are obsessed with exterminating unicorns, due to a sacred text which states the bears they previously were rulers of the woodland, until these creatures expelled them.
Some haven’t fully bought into the brainwashing, , choose to sample narcotics or mate outdoors.
Unlike their gentle counterparts, these colorful critters show genitals , definite urges.
For a particular especially vicious, cynical bear, the character Bluey, the conflict with unicorns transforms into a road toward dominance — and especially to authority over his gentler, nicer brother the character Tubby.
Bluey behaves aggressively and an apparent sociopath , and while terror takes over his group and kills his teammates sequentially, he grabs increasingly influence for himself, in increasingly gory, harmful methods.
Simultaneously, the unicorns are experiencing their own terror, in the form of an expanding, harmful creature in their forest.
“In the early stages, it seems like a comedy,” the director commented. “However it becomes a more dramatic and sad film. And by the end, it’s a horror film.”
The Unicorn Wars commences similar to one of the more playful films from a legendary filmmaker, that uncover a mischievous joy in letting cartoon characters curse, shoot each other, or have intimate relations.
Afterward it turns into something more like a more grim film by that same creator, with increasingly graphic violence and a noticeable link to the real suffering of conflict.
Ultimately, it becomes a full-on Grand Guignol massacre.
The horror that turns this a perfect Halloween movie begins a lot earlier than one might expect.
The Unicorn Wars is suited for the hardcore lovers of violence, for enthusiasts of extreme cinema who want to view something they haven’t ever watched previously, and who can handle a plot that offers unflinching brutality.
See it in a dimly lit space free from interruptions, and the conclusion will crawl deep within you and stay with you.
How to view: Accessible via digital rental or sale on various streaming sites.
