Deep Dive Disney: Wes Looks at The Black Cauldron

Oh my goodness, I’m exhausted after this one. Well, I promised you people The Black Cauldron and this insane retrospective hasn’t made a liar out of me yet so by God, I’m going to give you people The Black Cauldron. Welcome everyone once again to Deep Dive Disney where today, we will be looking at The Black fucking Cauldron. I said at the end of my Fox & The Hound article that this film is often seen as Disney’s greatest failure and while it’s not completely devoid of merit, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t completely understand why this one bombed and bombed hard. So, what are we looking at here? Loosely adapted from the first two books in Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, which are themselves based on Welsh Mythology, The Black Cauldron tells a story of Taran, an assistant pig keeper with aspirations of being a hero. Taran learns that his master’s prized pig, Hen Wen, possesses the power to see the future. This ability makes the pig a target of the evil Horned King who wishes to use this clairvoyance to find the location of The Black Cauldron, an item of great power and great evil that will allow the evil king to raise an army of the dead to conquer the world. The film has a promising set up as well as most welcome dark tone, something that earned it the first PG rating of any animated Disney film in history up to that point, but gets bogged down by bad pacing, uninteresting or annoying characters and some pointless diversions. I honestly just kind of want to get this one over with, so let’s discuss, The Black Cauldron.

Main Character:

Going to be completely honest, I wasn’t really a fan of Taran. I mostly found him annoying. I don’t mind that he wants to be a great warrior, that’s par for the course for a sword and sorcery tale such as this. However, his constant insistence that he’s a warrior despite being a bit of an uncoordinated moron just irked me. The kid is a bit of a whiner and every time he complains about his station in life I honestly just wanted to ring his neck. Even though there’s an actual princess in this movie, Taran is the one who comes across more like your stereotypical Disney Princess than she does. He’s incredibly cocky and constantly longs for more out of life but is naïve and lacks a basic understanding of how the outside world works. I know that this character archetype can be interesting, hell even some of the Disney Princesses manage to make it work, but all those characters had a certain charm to them that’s just lacking with Taran here. I had I just was having a hard time getting behind him as our big damn hero is what I’m saying. Even when he finally sets off on his journey, he’s constantly screwing things up. He manages to lose the super important pig within five minutes because he's too busy daydreaming, he reveals the pig's powers to The Horned King after he swore to keep them a secret and later, he leads the bad guys straight to the black cauldron. I guess his arc is about learning what being a hero really means, something I’d like to discuss in greater detail in the story section but I still think they could have stood to make Taran a little less annoying and a little more competent.

Villain:

Now we’re talking. If people remember one thing about this movie, I can almost guarantee you that it’s this guy. He may not be the best Disney villain necessarily, but he’s far and away one of the most terrifying. This guy doesn’t waste time with humor or shenanigans, he gets right down to business and anyone who stands in his way dies. He’s completely ruthless, utterly without remorse or humanity and desires nothing more than to use the power of the black cauldron raise his army of the dead and become a god amongst mortals. The Horned king is voiced by the late great John Hurt, whom you may remember from that one movie where a Xenomorph burst out of his chest or maybe that other movie where a Xenomorph burst out of his chest and did the Michigan J. Frog dance. My point is, John Hurt is an amazing actor and his voice is perfect for the Horned King. He doesn’t really talk all that much, but when he does, it’s always chilling. Every time he enters the room, the tone changes and entire rooms once full of rowdy drunks suddenly fall silent. Any of his underlings who displease him are added to the pile of corpses he collects for when he awakens his undead army, but in the meantime, he has a perfectly good live one at his disposal. This includes an entire castle full of ruthless cutthroats, a couple of dragons and an annoying little goblin like creature named Creeper. It’s also worth noting that despite this movie not doing too well, The Horned King actually once had a prominent role at the Disney parks, Tokyo Disneyland to be more specific. At one point, there was a walkthrough attraction underneath the Cinderella Castle that brought guests through the castle dungeons where they’d encounter plenty of creepy sights relating to various Disney villains. A large audio-animatronic of the Horned King served as the final encounter of the attraction and, after giving his rather terrifying spiel, a guest, usually a small child, would chosen to be the one to defeat him. It was actually a pretty cool concept for a Disney attraction and gave this film some much needed representation at the Disney Parks, but it was sadly shut down for being an earthquake risk. What might be the creepiest thing about The Horned King is that virtually nothing is known about him. No one seems to know who he is, where he came from or even what he is, though I have a theory about that last one. Since the King is clearly some kind of skeletal creature, I theorize that he was actually created by the Black Cauldron itself but survived for so long that he managed to become a threat unto himself and now plans to use the power of the very thing that created him to make himself a god. It would explain why he’s drawn into the cauldron at the end. In any case, this is one hell of a villain who deserved a much better movie.

Side Characters:

Naturally, Taron picks up a few allies on this quest of his forming a regular D&D party of sorts. First up there’s princess Eilonwy who’s fine, I guess. They don’t really give her all that much character beyond making her a love interest for Taran but at least she has more of a definable personality than Aurora.

There’s also this bard named Fflewddur Fflam who despite not getting a whole ton of character either still got a couple of good lines and usually served as the voice of reason when Taran was off whining about something stupid

There’s also this random colony of fairies that pops up halfway through the film that honestly feels completely pointless.

Then, *sigh* there’s Gurgi. I hated Gurgi. Every painful second Gurgi was on my screen, he was rapidly approaching Cinderella Mice territory for me. He’s like some kind of fuzzy Smeagol only infinitely more annoying. This character does nothing in the story other than act an irritating little turd that makes you want to throw a knife through your television. When he makes this noble sacrifice at the end, it feels forced because you just want this character to go away, and even if you don’t, his sacrifice is still cheapened because they bring him back at the end.

So, we’re skipping the next two sections since for the first time, we actually don’t have any songs to discuss, and any memorable scenes I'd like to comment on are better suited to The Dark Disney Factor. So let's more right on to...

Story:

As I said earlier, the arc that Taran goes through is learning what it means to be a hero. At first Taran thinks that being a hero is all about glory and great deeds. Later in the film, Taran finds this magical sword that, while powerful, does all the work for him. Later still, Taran trades the sword in exchange for the Black Cauldron but then mopes that he’s useless without it. It’s only at the end that Taran actually understands and nearly sacrifices his life in order to neutralize the cauldron’s dark magic, because being a hero isn’t about glory, it’s about sacrifice and doing the right thing even if it costs you your life and your name is never celebrated. Fortunately, Taran doesn’t have to make the sacrifice as Gurgi sacrifices himself in Taran’s place, but Taran still learns the valuable lesson. After the final battle, Taran has an opportunity to regain his magical sword, something than can grant him what he always wanted but he rejects it and instead opts to bring Gurgi back to life, once again, sacrificing his own wants for the benefit of others. I think the message gets a bit muddled due to how annoying both Taran and Gurgi can be, but it's still there and still a nice message

The Dark Disney Factor:

This is where this movie truly shines. Everywhere you look there are creepy foreboding backgrounds, dead bodies, near decapitations of adorable animals, horrifying dragons, evil witches, creepy goblins, pigs that look like they're tripping balls, grave robbing, scantily clad dancing bar maidens, this film has it all and then some. We already discussed the Horned King and how creepy he is, but he's only the tip of the ice berg. Supposedly, the original draft of this film had even more dark and gruesome injury, allegedly enough to where it almost warranted an R rating. There's one scene where our heroes come across this group of witches who look like what you'd get if you left the Sanderson Sisters in the fridge too long, and one of them is desperately trying to fuck the bard character but the other one keeps turning him into a toad and at one point he ends up in their cleavage and it's all kinds of messed up and suggestive. I can't believe that this is a sentence I'm typing in an article about a Disney film, but this movie damn near ruined boobs for me. The big finale is also a ton of gruesome fun. The Horned King finally has his hands on the Cauldron and this green mist comes out of it, animating his undead army. Every dead body in the room springs to life and starts marching forward. Supposedly, there was footage cut where the King's living minions were also affected by the Cauldron's magic and you would have seen their skin melting like Raiders of the Lost Ark. How cool would that have been? I also like that the zombies have this weird distortion effect that gives them this unsettling otherworldly quality. Honestly though, the darkest thing about the film is how the Horned King meets his demise. He's furious that Taran screwed up his plans and tries to throw the poor kid into the cauldron but the spirit of the cauldron itself starts drawing the king to it and as he's resisting his flesh is violently ripped from his body and he screams in agony as cauldron claims his soul. This was definitely a cut above when it comes to the Dark Disney Factor and I had a blast with these aspects of the film.

Final Thoughts: I honestly wanted to like this one, truly I did. I like it when Disney tries to be a little darker and a little more adult, and I truly think that there is a good movie in here somewhere but its so buried underneath irritating characters, terrible pacing and weak script that sadly, the stuff that does work can't save this one from joining Cinderella and Peter Pan in the Never Again pile. Truth be told, I actually believe that this film could benefit from a live action remake, and maybe if Disney allows it, we can actually get the dark R-rated story we were always meant have. All I can say is that this great villain, this beautiful animation and these incredible dark elements deserved to be a part of a much better movie. Speaking of much better movies, now is as good a time as any to tell you about something I like to call my Big 5. Thus far, we've covered Disney movies that I've enjoyed since childhood as well as films that I've gained a new appreciation for, but the Big 5 are the five Disney films that I have loved unconditionally from the moment I first saw them. They are, in my opinion, the absolute best of the best. I bring this up because next time, we will be covering the first film in this retrospective that happens to be a part of my Big 5. So join me next time where things get elementary and we cover one of the greatest Disney movies ever made, The Great Mouse Detective.