That Grisly Cartoon Film Ending That Haunts Fans
Among all the adult-oriented animated films I’ve personally viewed, nothing has remained with me quite like the dread-soaked ending of the explicitly bloody as well as highly provocative film from 2022 The Unicorn Wars.
Back in 2015’s, the Spain-based writer-director developed a dark, somber , often savage world with several minor , desolate twinges of optimism.
Although Unicorn Wars feels like it originated from a drive to push the medium even more, the filmmaker stated that it was more an attempt to express a universal, multicultural theme concerning “the mutual source of every conflict.”
That idea is expressed through a squad of colorful pastel bears , clearly inspired by a well-known series of lovable characters.
Maturing in a community focused on militarism as well as the war machine, numerous the bears are fixated on slaughtering unicorns, thanks to a sacred text which states the bears they previously were rulers of the forest, before the unicorns forced them out.
Others have not completely bought into the indoctrination, and choose to sample drugs and fornicate outdoors.
In contrast to their friendly equivalents, these bright beings show genitals and obvious urges.
For a particular notably brutal, cynical bear, the bear named Bluey, the war with the unicorns becomes a path to control — and especially to dominance above his more tender, kinder brother the character Tubby.
Bluey acts as a tormentor , a seeming sociopath , and when horror dominates his group and kills his fellow soldiers individually, he seizes progressively power on his own behalf, via progressively bloody, harmful methods.
Meanwhile, the unicorns are experiencing their own horror, in the form of a growing, deadly beast in their woods.
“In the early stages, it feels like a comedy,” the filmmaker commented. “Yet it evolves into a more serious and sad film. And in the finale, it becomes a terrifying movie.”
The Unicorn Wars begins feeling a bit like one of the most playful films from an iconic filmmaker, that discover a mischievous joy in allowing animated figures swear, shoot each other, or sex each other up.
Afterward it becomes something more like a more grim work by that same creator, featuring progressively graphic violence , a palpable relation to the real horror of war.
Ultimately, it becomes an outright extreme drama massacre.
The horror that turns the film a Halloween-friendly watch begins much sooner than one might expect.
The Unicorn Wars is suited for the most dedicated gorehounds, for fans of graphic films who want to see something they have not seen on-screen before, and can endure a plot that pulls unflinching brutality.
See it with the lights off without any distractions, and the finale will crawl under your skin and take up residence there.
Where to watch: Offered for digital rental or sale on several online services.
