The Gory Animated Movie Ending That Lingers Fans
Among all the mature animated films I have ever viewed, no other has stuck with me as much as the dread-soaked conclusion of the explicitly bloody and overwhelingly transgressive film from 2022 Unicorn Wars.
In the year 2015, the Spanish filmmaker created a grim, bleak and often savage universe that included several minor , desolate hints of hope.
While Unicorn Wars seems like it stemmed from a desire to advance the medium even more, the director explained that it was more an attempt to communicate a widespread, cross-cultural theme concerning “the common origin of every conflict.”
That message is communicated through a band of vividly colored bears , clearly modeled after a famous series of cuddly figures.
Maturing in a culture focused on aggression and the war machine, a lot of the bears are fixated on exterminating the mythical beasts, due to a holy book that claims them they used to be kings of the woods, until the unicorns expelled them.
Some haven’t fully bought into the propaganda, , would rather experiment with drugs and engage sexually in the forest.
In contrast to their cuddly equivalents, these bright beings have visible sexual organs and obvious libidos.
For a particular particularly cruel, pessimistic creature, the bear named Bluey, the war against the unicorns becomes a road to power — and especially to dominance above his gentler, nicer brother Tubby.
This bear acts as a tormentor , an obvious antisocial figure , and while horror overcomes his group and kills his comrades one by one, he seizes progressively control on his own behalf, via progressively gory, damaging approaches.
Meanwhile, these mythical beings are suffering their own horror, as a growing, deadly beast in their habitat.
“Initially, it appears as a lighthearted film,” the director stated. “Yet it becomes a more serious and sorrowful movie. And by the end, it transforms into a terrifying movie.”
Unicorn Wars commences resembling one of the most whimsical films by a renowned animator, which find a naughty glee in allowing animated figures curse, engage in violence, or sex each other up.
Subsequently it becomes something more like a more grim movie from that director, with increasingly visual gore and a palpable relation to genuine suffering of battle.
Ultimately, it becomes an outright Grand Guignol carnage.
The fear that makes this a perfect Halloween movie begins well before than that description suggests.
The Unicorn Wars is ideal for the most dedicated gorehounds, for lovers of intense movies who want to see a movie they haven’t ever viewed until now, and can endure a story that offers absolutely no punches.
See it in a dark room without any distractions, and the finale will dig under your skin and take up residence there.
How to view: Accessible via digital rental or sale on multiple streaming sites.
