Of all the adult-targeted animated films I’ve ever watched, nothing has stuck with me like the dread-soaked ending of Alberto Vázquez’s graphically gory, overwhelmingly transgressive 2022 movie Unicorn Wars. In 2015’s Birdboy: The Forgotten Children, the Spanish writer-director created a dark, melancholy, often savage world with a few small, forlorn twinges of hope. While Unicorn Wars feels like it came from an impulse to push the medium further, the director told Polygon that it was more of an attempt to communicate a universal, cross-cultural message about “the common origin of all wars.”
That message is communicated through a group of colorful pastel bears, openly modeled after the Care Bears. (“I like working with recognizable iconography,” Vázquez explained.) Growing up in a society built around warmongering and the military-industrial complex, many of the bears are obsessed with slaughtering unicorns, thanks to a holy book that tells them they were once kings of the forest, before the unicorns drove them out. Others haven’t fully fallen for the propaganda, and would rather experiment with drugs and fornicate in the woods. (Unlike the Care Bears, these colorful critters have visible genitals, and definite sex drives.)
For one particularly cruel, cynical bear, Bluey (not that one), the war against unicorns becomes a road to power — and particularly to dominance over his softer, kinder brother Tubby. Bluey is a bully and an apparent sociopath (for whatever that means in a world full of big-eyed cartoon bears and fantasy creatures), and as horror takes over his unit and claims his fellow soldiers one by one, he seizes more and more power for himself, in increasingly bloody, destructive ways. Meanwhile, the unicorns are enduring their own horror, in the form of a growing, destructive monster in their woods.
Unicorn Wars starts out feeling a bit like one of the more whimsical Ralph Bakshi films (think Cool World or Fritz the Cat) which find a naughty glee in letting cartoon characters swear, shoot each other, or sex each other up. Then it becomes something more like Bakshi’s Wizards, with increasingly graphic violence and a palpable connection to the real tragedy of war. By the end, it’s a full-on Grand Guignol bloodbath.
“At the beginning, it feels like a humorous movie,” Vázquez said. “But then it becomes a more dramatic and sad film. And by the end, it’s a horror film.”
The horror that makes this a Halloween-friendly watch kicks in a lot earlier than that description suggests. Unicorn Wars is one for the most dedicated gorehounds, for lovers of extreme cinema who want to see something they’ve never seen on-screen before, and who can handle a story that pulls absolutely no punches. Watch it in a dark room without any distractions, and that ending will burrow under your skin and take up residence there.
Where to watch: Available for rental or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and other digital platforms.
Polygon’s annual Halloween Countdown is a 31-day run of short recommendations of the best horror movies, shows, TV episodes, and online specials to stream for the Halloween season. You can find the entire calendar here.
