The Grisly Cartoon Movie Ending That Lingers Audiences
Out of every mature cartoon movies I’ve personally viewed, nothing has remained with me quite like the terror-laced finale of a viscerally violent and deeply subversive 2022 movie Unicorn Wars.
In 2015’s, the Spanish filmmaker crafted a grim, melancholy and often savage universe with several minor , desolate glimmers of hope.
Although The Unicorn Wars seems like it stemmed from an impulse to expand the medium even more, the filmmaker clarified that it was more an effort to express a global, multicultural theme concerning “the shared root of every conflict.”
That idea is communicated through a group of vividly colored bears , obviously based on a popular line of cuddly figures.
Being raised in a society focused on aggression and the defense industry, many of the bears are fixated on killing the mythical beasts, thanks to a holy book that claims the bears they used to be masters of the woodland, before the unicorns drove them out.
Others haven’t fully accepted the propaganda, , would rather try out narcotics and mate in the forest.
Unlike their friendly counterparts, these colorful critters have visible sexual organs and obvious urges.
For a certain especially vicious, pessimistic creature, the character Bluey, the conflict against the unicorns becomes a route toward dominance — and particularly to authority above his softer, kinder brother the bear Tubby.
Bluey is a bully , an apparent psychopath , and when horror dominates his squad and claims his fellow soldiers individually, he takes increasingly power personally, through ever more gory, damaging approaches.
At the same time, these mythical beings are suffering their own terror, through an expanding, harmful creature in their habitat.
“At the beginning, it seems like a lighthearted film,” the director commented. “Yet it becomes a more dramatic and sorrowful movie. And by the end, it transforms into a terrifying movie.”
The Unicorn Wars begins feeling a bit like among the playful films from an iconic filmmaker, that uncover a wicked pleasure in allowing drawn beings swear, fire weapons, or have intimate relations.
Subsequently it evolves into more akin to a darker work from that artist, with increasingly graphic violence , a noticeable relation to the actual horror of war.
Ultimately, it’s a complete theatrical horror massacre.
The fear that makes the film an ideal spooky-season movie starts well before than one might expect.
Unicorn Wars is ideal for the most dedicated gorehounds, for enthusiasts of extreme cinema who desire to view a film they’ve never watched previously, and can endure a story which delivers absolutely no punches.
Watch it with the lights off free from interruptions, and the finale will burrow into your mind and stay with you.
Where to watch: Accessible via rental or purchase on various online services.
