That Gruesome Cartoon Movie Ending That Haunts Audiences
Out of all the mature cartoon movies I have ever watched, no other has remained with me as much as the fear-filled finale of the explicitly bloody and overwhelingly transgressive 2022 movie The Unicorn Wars.
In the year 2015, this Spanish writer-director developed a dark, somber and often savage world with several minor , desolate hints of optimism.
Although Unicorn Wars seems like it stemmed from a drive to expand the medium even more, the filmmaker clarified that it was rather a try to express a global, multicultural message about “the shared root of every conflict.”
That idea is expressed by means of a group of colorful pastel bears , openly based on a famous series of lovable figures.
Growing up in a society centered on militarism as well as the military-industrial complex, many of the bears are obsessed with slaughtering unicorns, thanks to a religious scripture that tells them they used to be kings of the forest, until the unicorns forced them out.
Others have not completely bought into the brainwashing, and choose to try out substances and engage sexually in the forest.
In contrast to their cuddly equivalents, these bright beings display genitals and obvious urges.
For a particular especially vicious, pessimistic creature, the bear named Bluey, the war with the unicorns becomes a road to power — and specifically to authority above his gentler, more compassionate sibling the character Tubby.
Bluey is a bully and an obvious antisocial figure , and while horror overcomes his squad and takes his fellow soldiers one by one, he grabs increasingly control for himself, through ever more bloody, destructive ways.
Meanwhile, the unicorns are suffering their own terror, in the form of a spreading, harmful creature in their habitat.
“At the beginning, it appears as a humorous movie,” the director said. “However it turns into a more intense and melancholic film. And by the end, it becomes a horror film.”
The Unicorn Wars starts out resembling one of the most quirky movies from a renowned animator, which find a naughty glee in allowing animated figures swear, shoot each other, or sex each other up.
Subsequently it becomes more akin to a darker work from the same artist, with increasingly visual gore and a noticeable relation to the real suffering of battle.
By the end, it is an outright Grand Guignol carnage.
The terror that turns the film a Halloween-friendly viewing starts much sooner than one might expect.
Unicorn Wars is ideal for the hardcore gorehounds, for fans of intense movies who wish to see a movie they’ve never seen on-screen before, and can endure a plot that pulls unflinching brutality.
See it with the lights off free from interruptions, and the finale will crawl under your skin and take up residence there.
Availability: Accessible via rental or purchase on various digital platforms.
