One of the major networks--CBS, I think--ran this when I was a kid, and it scarred the living crap out of me then. I couldn't sleep for days afterward. To this day, when I watch it, I shudder. Looking at the reviews over at the IMDB, I can see I wasn't alone.
shareThis is an excellent tale, hearkening back to the old days when fairy tales were rather ghastly and served the purpose of letting the young ones know that real life is harsh, before the age of modernity when kids are spoiled, coddled and sheltered from the uncomfortable realities of the world, thereby growing up to become a generation of perpetual adolescents who are unprepared for the real world, and whose entitled over-sensitivity makes them think it's okay to constantly get loudly offended over every little thing that other people say and do.
shareOh, is it now? I just saw it as a pedestrian movie that had to use gratuitous violence to get an edge over the competition, as animation was such a crowded field at the time. And it worked. Who would remember this movie if it weren't for all the gore? It didn't break new ground artistically or in terms of animation, and it didn't give birth to any memorable characters or performances. All it's remembered for is being a dark film about rabbits killing each other.
shareThe film was a hit with both audiences and critics, and also won a Hugo Award. Criterion Collection also recognized the artistry of this film thusly when they brought it to their prestige-format home video line:
With this passion project, screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved what had been thought nearly impossible: a faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits under terrible threat from modern forces. With its naturalistic hand-drawn animation, dreamily expressionistic touches, gorgeously bucolic background design, and elegant voice work from such superb English actors as John Hurt, Ralph Richardson, Richard Briers, and Denholm Elliott, Watership Down is an emotionally arresting, dark-toned allegory about freedom amid political turmoil.