The Grisly Animated Movie Ending That Stays With Audiences
Out of all the mature animated films I’ve ever watched, nothing has lingered in my mind as much as the fear-filled finale of a graphically gory and overwhelingly transgressive 2022 movie Unicorn Wars.
Back in 2015’s, the Spanish filmmaker created a grim, somber and frequently brutal world with some tiny , forlorn twinges of hope.
While The Unicorn Wars appears as it came from a desire to advance animation even more, the director stated that it was more a try to express a universal, cross-cultural message concerning “the mutual source of every conflict.”
That idea is communicated by means of a group of vividly colored bears , obviously based on a popular line of lovable characters.
Growing up in a community focused on warmongering and the defense industry, a lot of these animals are obsessed with exterminating the mythical beasts, because of a sacred text that claims the bears they were once rulers of the woodland, until the unicorns expelled them.
Others have not completely fallen for the propaganda, and would rather sample drugs or mate in the woods.
In contrast to their friendly counterparts, these bright beings show genitals , definite urges.
For a particular particularly cruel, pessimistic creature, Bluey, the battle against the unicorns becomes a path toward dominance — and specifically to dominance over his softer, kinder brother the bear Tubby.
This bear behaves aggressively , a seeming antisocial figure , and as terror overcomes his squad and claims his comrades sequentially, he grabs progressively power personally, via progressively violent, damaging approaches.
Meanwhile, these mythical beings are suffering their own horror, in the form of an expanding, harmful creature in their habitat.
“At the beginning, it appears as a humorous movie,” the filmmaker commented. “However it becomes a more intense and melancholic film. And in the finale, it transforms into a scary feature.”
The Unicorn Wars begins feeling a bit like one of the more whimsical movies by a renowned animator, which find a wicked pleasure in letting animated figures curse, engage in violence, or have intimate relations.
Afterward it becomes more akin to a more grim work by that same director, with increasingly visual gore , a noticeable relation to genuine tragedy of conflict.
In the finale, it is a full-on Grand Guignol carnage.
The terror that makes the film an ideal spooky-season viewing kicks in a lot earlier than one might expect.
The Unicorn Wars is one for the hardcore fans of gore, for lovers of extreme cinema who desire to see something they haven’t ever viewed until now, and who can handle a plot which delivers unflinching brutality.
See it in a dark room free from interruptions, and the finale will dig deep within you and take up residence there.
Where to watch: Available for streaming or buying on several streaming sites.
