That Gruesome Animated Movie Ending That Stays With Viewers
Out of every adult-oriented animated films I’ve ever watched, nothing has remained with me quite like the fear-filled finale of the graphically gory and deeply subversive 2022 movie Unicorn Wars.
Back in the year 2015, this Spanish writer-director crafted a dark, bleak , often savage world with several minor , forlorn twinges of hope.
Although The Unicorn Wars appears as it came from a desire to push the medium even more, the filmmaker explained that it was actually a try to communicate a widespread, cross-cultural message regarding “the shared root of all wars.”
That message is conveyed via a group of vividly colored bears , obviously modeled after a well-known series of cuddly characters.
Being raised in a society centered on militarism and the defense industry, numerous these creatures are obsessed with killing the mythical beasts, because of a religious scripture that tells the bears they were once masters of the woodland, until the unicorns drove them out.
A few have not completely fallen for the propaganda, and prefer to sample drugs or fornicate in the forest.
Unlike their cuddly counterparts, these colorful critters display sexual organs and clear sex drives.
For a certain especially vicious, cynical bear, Bluey, the war against unicorns becomes a path to power — and especially to authority above his gentler, more compassionate sibling Tubby.
Bluey is a bully , an apparent psychopath , and as fear takes over his group and takes his fellow soldiers one by one, he seizes more and more influence personally, in increasingly violent, destructive ways.
At the same time, these mythical beings are enduring their own horror, in the form of a growing, destructive monster in their forest.
“Initially, it seems like a humorous movie,” the filmmaker stated. “Yet it turns into a more dramatic and melancholic movie. And by the end, it becomes a horror film.”
Unicorn Wars begins feeling a bit like one of the most whimsical features from an iconic filmmaker, that discover a naughty glee in letting drawn beings curse, shoot each other, or have intimate relations.
Afterward it turns into something more like a darker work by that same director, with increasingly graphic violence , a palpable connection to the real horror of conflict.
By the end, it’s an outright theatrical horror bloodbath.
The horror that turns the film an ideal spooky-season viewing begins much sooner than one might expect.
Unicorn Wars is ideal for the hardcore gorehounds, for enthusiasts of graphic films who desire to view a film they haven’t ever seen on-screen before, and who can handle a story which delivers no restraint.
Watch it in a dimly lit space without any distractions, and that ending will crawl into your mind and take up residence there.
Availability: Accessible via rental or purchase on various digital platforms.
