The Black Cauldron

"The Black Cauldron" certainly doesn't fall into the genre of animated Disney family favorite, but instead feels much like the more grim and complicated fantasy films that were made in the eighties. Does it stack up to such films as "Return To Oz" and "The Dark Crystal"? Well, although not as complex as the aformentioned, this film is not without its charm.

The story of Taran, the pig-keeper's journey from gawky boy to gawky boy-hero apparently works better as told through the course of five books, and indeed it is the plot that feels put together, with a lot cut out of it for it's slim 1:20 running time. Also suffering because of the short time is any character development, or a reason why the charcter of Dallben (an old minstrel) are in the film at all. However, this film still has a lot going for it.

The film has a wonderful pacing to it with some fantastic action scenes. It is adventurous and fun. An engaing film for any fantasy fan. What really makes the film though is it's terrifying and dastardly villain, The Horned King. He is basically a Skeletor knock off with absolutely no sense of humor. He looks like he stepped right out of an Iron Maden album cover, and that is a monumental good thing. The true threat felt by the presence of this decidedly un-Disney character keeps the tension of the film high.

It is this contrast, between the unconventionally ghoulish villans (definatly enspirered by Bakshi's animated adaptation of "Lord of the Rings") and the stock Disney characters makes the audience care more-so for the cutesy characters than usual. This is especially true for the cutsey character of Gurgi, who is much more tollerable than almost all other Disney sidekicks and especially more tollerable than a certain J*r J*r B*nks that we have all been over exposed to lately.

So I would recommend "The Black Cauldron", it's a fun and well animated adventure film. Compleatly scary and strange for Disney to make, but still very very good for other reasons nonetheless.

"The Black Cauldron" is not a typical Disney animated feature. For one thing, it's not a G-rated musical. In fact, it was the first-ever Disney feature to receive a PG rating. The story comes from the works of Lloyd Alexander, in the spirit of J.R.R. Tolkien. In it, Taran, a young pig-keeper must protect Henwen, a prophetic pig who can divine the whereabouts of a powerful weapon known as the Black Cauldron. The demonic Horned King is after this bastion of black magic to create an invincible army of the undead. This movie boasts impressive art shot in 70mm widescreen format, art which includes the contributions of a young Tim Burton. Sadly, this feature did poorly in theaters, possibly being too frightening, or going over the heads of Disney's usual target audience. Just the same, "The Black Cauldron" deserves a good look!

1st watched 10/2/2004 - 7 out of 10(Dir- Ted Berman & Richard Rich): Well-done overlooked Disney film. This is one of the movies that came out before "Little Mermaid" in 1989 similar to "The Great Mouse Detective" that didn't get much attention but nevertheless was a well-done story & production. This may have been the first animated Disney film to be rated PG as well, which may have kept people away. The PG rating may have been given for a small blood being shown on the mouth of our hero or the very scary zombie-like "Horn King" who has to rate up there as one of the truly scary villains in the Disney films. The story revolves around the Horn King's reign and his attempt to have greater reign over the world by finding the Black Cauldron. An enchanted pig that is able to see the future is also much wanted by the Horn King in order to find out where the Black Cauldron is. What makes this movie good is the story, the animation, the music, and the overall presentation. I also like that it didn't follow other Disney films and became it's own entity. This may be another reason it's not associated with Disney often. Overall this is a very groundbreaking Disney film, but it was so forgotten that it's not had any impact on the future of Disney.

This is not your average Disney movie, which is full of happy characters and a long line of happy-go-lucky songs. For many years, Disney disowned this movie because it wasn't a box-office hit and was released on VHS/DVD only twice.

One of few PG-rated Disney movies, this one contains no music, and truly scary characters (age-depending, of course). Although characters like the Horned King and his undead army, may frighten younger viewers, the movie's dark side may be appreciated by some children (we forget that they too may appreciate the darker sides of things).The story is slow-moving for a Disney movie, but involving nonetheless. Although it is not the best movie, it is different from their usual gooey-mess of a film, while still having a fantasy-theme and does not seem like a Disney movie whatsoever (in a good way!).

I first saw this movie when I was a kid (probably 7 or 8) and I loved it. After that I didn't know what happened to it. Then last year (or so) it appeared on video. Naturally I snapped it up.

Well? Had the years been kind? Somewhat. Of course the build-up I had given it could never have been lived up to, but I enjoyed it. Watching it again, without the preconceptions, I thought it was wonderful. Maybe not as good as I thought as a kid, but still great.

Sure, some of the animation isn't as polished and crisp as the likes of 'The Little Mermaid' or 'Beauty and the Beast' (2 of my favorites) but it still looks great (especially the cauldron scenes near the end). And the team didn't feel the need to squeeze songs in where they would have been unwelcome. There are NO songs in this movie.

Overall, I can see why some people don't like it, but that's surely true of any movie. This is an atypical Disney release, but a classic. One of my favorites.