Psychic Rabbits and fields drenched in blood. 

 

What’s gone on here, you may ask. Why is Watership Down featured in a horror blog post? It’s a film about cartoon rabbits, right?

 

That’s clearly what the teachers thought when they shelved the harrowing tale next to the hungry caterpillar in my school library. 

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But settle in kids (and grown-ups), Watership Down is a brutal, bloody and disturbing tale of bunny massacre. It’s got horror cred right up the warren, from giant rabbit dictator generals, murderous Rottweilers and what is basically a bunny concentration camp, this film has cartoon blood dripping and gushing from, well, everywhere. 

 

Based on the 1972 novel by Richard Adams, Watership Down is basically a horrendously grisly film about the brutality of war. With Rabbits. 

 

So, two questions you may have at this early juncture (I did);

 

Firstly, what on earth would inspire someone to write such a thing, secondly, who would publish it and decide to make a film? 

 

To answer the first point, Adams fought at the particularly bloody battle of Arnhem in WW2. If you haven’t watched A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977), you should. As well as being a fantastic film, it also has a stellar cast including Sean Connery, Micheal Caine and Anthony Hopkins to name just a few screen legends. The film runs at nearly 3 hours long, so I’d suggest settling in on a Sunday afternoon, it’s brilliant, and brutal. 

 

So is Watership Down. Though there’s no direct link between the two, there are plenty of parallels to be drawn.

 

In a Bridge Too Far, a group of British foot soldiers are sent to secure the Arnham bridge over the Rhine River against the Nazis, to stop them invading the Netherlands, and to give the British and US access to Germany. The soldiers are meant to hold the fort for a couple of days until the big boys arrive - with tanks, more ammo, more fighters. 

 

But due to an unfortunate series of cock-ups; their radios don’t work, so they can’t tell the back-up boys where they are, or that they are being massacred by the minute. 

 

The British airforce don’t know they’ve had to retreat to a new location, so they start dropping all of their ammo to the Germans by mistake, and by the time the lads get the radios working, back up have assumed they’re all dead (which most of them are), so have called the tanks off. It’s not worth sending them out for the ones remaining. It’s grim stuff but a brilliant film.

 

So, what’s that got to do with rabbits? In WD we get the same story, different setting. Though the blood here is animated, it’s just as horrifying as the blood in A Bridge Too Far. Same theme of being backed into a corner, outnumbered and brutally massacred, but still trying to fight the good fight out of the necessity to survive.

 

Adams came up with the story to entertain his kids on long car drives, and presumably thought making the brutal Nazis and Heroes into rabbits might make the story more palatable for the little ones. Spoiler, it doesn’t. I wonder how they turned out. 

 

Second, people didn’t want to publish it. It was refused by seven publishers before being picked up by Rex Collins, a small London publisher who apparently even questioned his own logic saying it was a ‘mad risk’. A new, unpublished author with an adult-themed book about a savage and grisly battle between cartoon rabbits? You can see why he hesitated. But hey, aren’t most of the best endeavours a mad risk, especially in horror? The risk paid off and the book became a bestseller after its publication in 1972.

 

Following its success, Director Martin Rosen decided to make an adaptation of Adam’s novel. A feature length animated film. In the vein of Kubrick and King’s notorious differences over the Shining, Adam and Rosen didn’t see eye to eye and bickered about artistic vision and who had creative control. Though they initially had discussions (it’s reported that Adams thought the book would not work on film), Rosen cracked on with the adaptation anyway, without seeking Adams’ approval. 

 

Whatever Adams' opinion about whether the book was right for a film adaptation, he made one point that seems on the money. His book was not meant for children. However, he does include a line, spoken by a rabbit called Blackberry:

 

“If we meet again …we’ll have the makings of the best story ever.”

 

It is a great story. Well done Admiral Adams, I salute you.

 

On that note, the other controversy was that the film was rated Universal (U) on its 1978 release. Presumably because it’s about cartoon rabbits. I’d like to know if whoever was on the ratings panel actually watched this. Someone should have a word. 

 

It was finally raised to a PG by the BBFC in 2023. Bit late guys. I suppose things were a bit more free on the gory/groovy front in the 70s. It was a decade where a lot of pretty disturbing and controversial stuff was released - Last House on the Left (Wes Craven, 1972), I Spit on your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974), Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978) - the list is endless. 

 

How much harm could cartoon rabbits do the kids? 

 

Watership Down is brutal. It tackles a lot of issues around survival, and who’ll help achieve that survival for your people (well, in this case, your rabbits). Oh, and there’s a lot of blood.

 

It also tackles and teaches the difference between a righteous death, a violent attack death, and simply being massacred.

 

WD follows an intrepid group of rabbits who have snuck past the guards to escape their current warren ‘Owsla’ as psychic runt of the litter, Fiver, has had a premonition that something bad is coming. He is correct. Before we kick off with the story proper, we get an intro to life as an ever persecuted and potentially soon-to-be-butchered rabbit. 

 

The animation in the film is amazing, the calm and serene parts (though few and far between) are beautiful, with intricate watercolour depictions of English countryside washing over you, and the harrowing parts are a genuine grizzly, death-stained gore fest.  

 

Before that though, we get a completely different animation style to set up what we have in store. The start of the film has a much more 2D stylised animation approach, bold colours on a blank background, a little like hieroglyphics. 

 

In the intro, the violence kicks in immediately with Frith (the bunny version of God) arming all the animals on earth to the back teeth (and claws, and beaks) with ‘blessings’ well suited to slaughtering rabbits. Frith is annoyed that the rabbits keep reproducing, using up all the resources he gave them. And that’s the least of their troubles in this slaughterous tale. 

 

Turns out Frith has a good sense of humour. What do the rabbits get blessed with? Legs that can run fast. Because they’ll bloody well need them to escape this newly weaponised lot of persecutors. That’s it. 

 

Oh, and he advises that they should always be full of tricks. And they learn quite a few along the way to bunny utopia. 

 

Frith warns;

“All the world will be your enemy, prince of a thousand enemies. If they catch you, they will kill you. Be cunning and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed”   

 

Nice intro for kids, eh?

 

Fiver’s premonition:

 

At the Owsla warren (where the soon-to-be hero rabbits live) at dusk, a man made sign has appeared. There’s a smoking cigarette butt at the foot of it, and ‘man footprints’. 

 

N.B., the rabbits in the film have their own language, which is a really lovely touch, making you feel like an insider and showing how alone and vulnerable the rabbits are against the outside world. They’ve got some great inventive names in there. ‘Rhoodledoo = car, Tharne, = weird rabbit premonitions, Efrefa = Nazi Bunny camp we will get to later - there must be a dictionary for this online somewhere. Look it up).

 

This is another wonderful thing about the film. We never see humans in full, they are simply referred to as ‘man’. We occasionally hear them and see menacing, stomping boots. But we’re very much watching from the rabbit’s perspective.

 

Little runt Fiver backs against the sign and looks up. He’s got a bad feeling. He’s become twitchy (‘Tharne’). 

 

He stares blankly out at the field. 

 

The moon turns a deep, disturbing crimson, then drains its colour across the field like blood. It's a death omen, creeping toward Fiver as he shivers, eyes wide with terror, and whispers in a voice already half-dead:

 

‘The Field! It’s covered with blood!”

 

There are some truly brilliant and genuinely disturbing lines in this film, which are both a nod to Adams’ amazing writing skill, and to his warning that his book was not intended for kids. 

 

I’ll give you a flavour here: 

 

“They seem sad, like trees in November…there’s something unnatural and evil and twisted about this place” Fiver, on one of his weird premonitions

 

“My heart has joined the thousand, my friend stopped running today” Hazel, when his friend gets trapped bleeding and strangling to death in a snare

 

“Men came. Filled in the burrows. Couldn’t get out. There was a strange sound. Hissing. The air turned bad. Runs blocked with dead bodies”. Holly, who barely manages to avoid the oncoming massacre from 'Man'.

 

“I’ll tear out every throat in the place” General Woundwort, who, let’s just say I’ll explain later. He’ll give you nightmares, however old you are. 

 

And they are just a few. 

 

The animation is genuinely disturbing and quite the shocking start to the film. It sets the tone immediately. Think the scene in The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) where the elevator doors open and blood fills the corridor while Danny looks on, paralysed with fear. But with rabbits. 

 

So, after some persuasion (and some more rational and diplomatic conversation with Fiver’s much more level headed and respected non-psychic brother, Hazel) a gang of rabbits form to flee the Owasla warren and find somewhere new to live away from, well, whatever this encroaching danger is. One rabbit, Holly, an Owsla officer is having none of this ridiculous psychic rabbit babble and tries to stop them, but they get away, leaving Holly behind. He will soon realise his mistake. 

 

Our intrepid explorers encounter enough terror, blood, guts, gore and death to make any horror film fan proud. And I imagine if the likes of Tom Savini did cartoons, they would be in their element with the visceral grossness of some of the dripping bloodthirsty illustration in this film.  

 

During the epic (and it really is epic) adventure to find the safe place, there are some pretty harrowing scenes and plot twists. In one scene, a huge rabbit, aptly named BigWig (a brave but hot headed ex-Owsla officer who used to work with Holly before the escape), storms off in a huff with the others and gets horrifically entangled in a snare. Cue foaming bloody mouth, flies buzzing around his head while he almost strangles to death before being freed by quick thinking Hazel. 

 

Safely out of that situation, but only just, the rabbits continue on their quest, and at dusk, freeze still in a ditch listening to a ghastly, echoing, moaning sound. 

 

BigWig declares it’s the black rabbit of death and that “When he calls you, you have to go”. Pretty intense before you even see anything. 

 

Turns out it’s Holly, who barely manages to crawl to the top before sliding, battered and broken into the ditch, scratched all over, bleeding, hardly able to lift his head.

 

This is where the real horror kicks in, forget the fields of blood. Now we see what Fiver was talking about. 'Man' came and destroyed the warren.

 

After escaping, Holly finds another warren – sanctuary surely? 

 

Wrong. 

 

He stumbled across Efrafa, a rabbit warren which is basically a Nazi concentration camp. Yes, you read that right. 

 

Holly says in a weak voice, shaking with fear and physical and emotional damage; 

 

“I tried to find you, I wandered for days. The men came, filled in the burrows, we couldn’t get out. The air turned bad. Runs blocked with dead bodies, we couldn’t get out”

 

The illustration for this is horrific. Rabbit bodies jammed in tunnels, crushing each other and suffocating as their bloodshot eyes roll back and their corpses turn rotten. Tractor claws scraping bloody lines into fields as the sky turns red. Gawd. Remember that bit in Danny Boyle’s 2002 classic, 28 Days Later when Mark declares;

 

“I remember the ground was soft. I looked down, and I was standing on all these people, like a carpet. 

 

People who had fallen, and somewhere in the crowd, there were the infected. It spread fast. No one could run, all you could do was climb ‘

 

The rabbits get Holly fixed up, and he tells them about the dangers of the Nazi warren - ripped ears, blinded eyes, torn out throats, horrible overcrowding where the female rabbits can’t produce a litter, public humiliation as a lesson to other rabbits who dare to go against the regime (kids stuff this is not). But the apex of the harrowing cruelty in this brutal dictatorship - General Woundwort. 

 

The naming here is excellent. Now this is not, repeat, not, a bunny you want to mess with. BigWig may be the Ex-Owsla’s bit of brute force, but compared to this enormous and terrifying behemoth of a rabbit, he looks like little psychic runt Fiver. On top of being an enormous hulking, razor sharp snaggle toothed warrior, blinded in one eye and covered in battle scars, he’s a totalitarian dictator ruling on the dark throne of his Efrafan empire with an iron paw. 

 

Shivers, honestly. When we first meet him he’s lurking in the back of his underground lair (Read: Bunker) chewing menacingly on some lettuce. 

 

Didn’t think a cartoon rabbit chewing lettuce could be menacing? Think again my friend. 

 

So after relating this tale of terror in the aim of getting the gang to stay away, Holly has actually had the opposite effect. Thing is, this gang is all lads. If they’re going to start a new life somewhere else (they’ve spotted a hill they like the look of, and built a warren. The warren is as much of a character as the rabbits are), they’re going to need some ladies. 

 

They met some on a farm earlier in the film, soft, pampered little hutch bunnies who weren’t keen to leave, but Hazel thinks he can persuade them. Only problem is, the farm they live on is guarded by a hulking great Rottweiler. A real nasty character. He spots them trying to free the ladies, and launches at them, full force, nearly toppling the kennel, but is barely restrained by some ragged rope. This is a Cujo-esque snarling, crazed, blood-lust beast, no question. But he’ll come in useful later.

 

Despite Holly’s warnings, the rabbits infiltrate the camp, led by BigWig who manages to get in by pretending he wants to join the Efrarfa. He’s got bunny credentials, having been an officer at Owsla, so after being eyed up by Woundworts one working evil eye, they let him in. But not before branding him with their ‘mark’, three deep claw scratches down his side. The general is still suspicious and growls at his second in command ‘Have them watched’. 

 

Despite the risk, they need ladies, and Efrafa has them. And they want to reproduce but can’t due to the aforementioned overcrowding (and one would assume pretty high stress levels to be fair). Again, some pretty adult themes here! 

 

The animation in Efrafa is brilliant. All of the rabbits in the regime have dark fur, generally one black eye and the odd ripped ear (seems the regime doesn’t spare the officers from brutality to keep them in check any more than it does the prisoners) and all are armed with razor sharp claws. We hear lots of whispered conversations echoing through long passages in the warren, booming voices of officers and shaking voices of captives. Both the animation and sound work brilliantly to instil a genuine sense of fear and dread worthy of any horror film. 

 

So, after lots of planning and near-misses, the rabbits manage to escape with their gang and some brave ladies.. 

 

When the gargantuan General hears of their escape, he is furious, and rises to his full height and bulk. He knows he’s been betrayed by BigWig. This is followed by a tirade of snarling, growling statements like ‘I’ll blind him’ and ‘If they aren’t waiting when I come for them, I’ll tear out every throat in the place’. 

 

And man, trust me, what ensues is a blood bath. Throat tearing a plenty. And for an animation (this is a U, remember), the blood, saliva, bone crunching, corpse flinging and foaming at the mouth is rampant. And really realistic, you know, for a cartoon about bunnies. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when the creative team got given this brief. 

 

Woundwort orders his patrol off their checkpoints of fear (maybe that assisted some other prisoners escape, I hope so!) to get in hot pursuit of the rabble. He launches ahead to find BigWig for a bloody showdown. And that is what you get.

 

What was intended as a haven has become a claustrophobic death trap in which they have nowhere to hide except underground. 

 

This nods back to man destroying their original warren at Owsla, but this time, the threat is their own kind, which is a scary theme in itself. Woundwort manages to dig into the warren where BigWig Launches at him and a gruesome and brutal fight ensues. Both are panting, bleeding and unwilling to back down. However, BigWig knows something the general doesn’t know. 

 

As Frith advised at the start of the film, along with fast legs to run from danger, a rabbit must be full of tricks. BigWig has the brawn, but Hazel has the brain. 

 

As with any good horror, we have the character who can think clearly and set the trap and we have the bruiser with good intentions who can kick some ass. Hazel has formed a strategic plan, in which BigWig distracts and defends through brute force until Hazel can unleash his genius. Not initially suited at the start, this team has set aside their differences, learned their strengths, learned to work together, and will fight together to survive. Absolutely classic horror fare. 

 

And we get a deliciously bloody battle and satisfying gory end, with a bit of an urban legend (erm, not urban - warren legend?) to finish off on. 

 

Remember the Rottweiler from the farm? Hazel and a couple of other bunnies have run back there, chewed through his rope, and set the ravenous beast free. Using themselves as bait and switching between members of the group (one hides to take a rest, the next one carries on, because Rottweilers are faster than rabbits - a damn fine bunny military plan) they lead the hound to the warren, where the Owsla crew are safe underground, and Woundwort's patrol are busy trying to dig the entrances to get inside. 

 

Cujo (ahem) the crazed dog spots a veritable smorgasbord of bunnies. Sod that little one he was just chasing. This is the chance for a real massacre. Someone is indeed going to rip out every throat in the place, but it's not the general. 

 

Absolute carnage, gore and terror ensues. It’s graphic, it's bloody. It's rage incarnate. This dog isn't after a snack. It's pure blood-lust. Just for the hell of it. Picture that scene at the end of The Texas chainsaw massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974), where LeatherFace (the original with legendary Gunnar Hansen, bugger the ones that came after) is swinging the chainsaw over his head in a nightmarish frenzied, unhinged fury. It’s that. But with a giant authoritarian Rabbit. And a Rottweiler. 

 

Woundwort and the giant hound from hell launch at each other, crazed eyes locked, sharp teeth bared and yellow, bloody saliva and pink foam dripping, gruesome, horrific, mutilated rabbit carcasses strewn around, blood soaking into the cartoon earth… and who knows what happened next. I think we can assume nothing good. 

 

But evil took on evil, and that’s a great showdown, cartoon or not.

 

So, to bring this savage story about fluffy bunnies to a close, we need a moral for the kids, right? 

 

Well we get one, in the same way as we get one in any urban (or in this case, warren) legend that gets passed down to the kids over the years. It made me think of Candyman (Bernard Rose, 1992) on the rewatch - enforcing mine (and Adams) point about this not being for kids. 

 

Candyman, starring the late, great Tony Todd (What a legend. Who else would fill their mouth with bees to make a film more realistic?) is one of my all time top horror films, and the Philip Glass score – perfect.

 

Anyway, this last scene in Watership Down is, as I say, as good a threatening and foreboding end as in any horror. 

 

There could be a kernel of truth behind this story. Something monstrous, heinous, terrible and grisly that actually happened to someone. That’s what makes it scary. 

 

In Candyman, Jake (DeJuan Guy), a young black kid living in the notorious Chicago Cabrini-Green Projects, is reluctant to talk to a young white investigative journalist, Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen).

 

 Why?

 

“Candyman will get me” He whispers.

 

At the end of Watership Down, we hear Frith (the rabbit God type figure from the start) narrating while the bunny heroes relax in the utopia they fought so long and hard and bloody a battle to secure: 

 

“General Woundworts body was never found. It could be that he still lives his fierce life somewhere else”

 

The rabbits have peace again, and Blackberry was right, it does make a good story. 

 

Woundwort has his legend. Bunny mothers tell their children;

 

“If they do not do what they’re told, the General will get them”.

 

Good horror never dies. It just finds new faces (even ones with fur and big ears. Donnie Darko, anyone?)

 

As warped, misrelated and creatively interpreted as stories and urban legends become, in many cases, it’s that ‘which part of this is true?’ And ‘what would I do?’, ‘ that makes us scared, and makes us question society and the dark side of other humans and ourselves. That’s what draws us. Right?

 

And before you get tucked in for the night after this U rated kids story about fluffy bunnies, here’s one of the best last lines from a villain, ever.  

 

Despite the bloody massacre around him, and the dog snarling, The General is still clearly ready and willing to fight the top dog (pun intended). The hound locks eyes with Woundwort and drops a limp rabbit corpse hanging from it’s mouth, still dripping blood.

 

Any Efrafa officers who’ve managed to escape the mighty jaws are running for their lives.

 

Woundwort, crazed with rage at the deserters and adrenaline after his battle with BigWig growls after them;

 

“Come back and fight. Come back and fight! Dogs aren’t dangerous!”

 

I’ve watched hundreds of horror films. And Watership Down still scares me. 

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