“The Black Cauldron” (1985)

The Black Cauldron

Grade: B+

One of my favorite movies as a young kid, I was surprised and a little disheartened to rewatch The Black Cauldron through supposedly wiser adult eyes and find it not as good as I remembered. The animation is still cool as hell, the dark fantasy elements are still spellbinding, but the storyline — or lack thereof — is a bit of a mess. Oh well, despite it’s flaws, The Black Cauldron will always hold a special place in my heart as a formative Colin’s Review Guilty Pleasure film.

Directing:

Plagued by a turbulent production process that began in 1973, the final cut of The Black Cauldron wasn’t released by Disney until 1985, directed by Ted Berman and Richard Rich (who also helmed The Fox and the Hound). Perhaps that’s why the film’s animation has such an old-school feel (despite being the first Disney film to feature computer-generated imagery)? Either way, the animation is consistently stunning, depicting a classic, medieval, dark fantasy land influenced by Snow White (1937), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Tolkien’s (or Bakshmi’s) The Lord of the Rings. In particular, any scene involving the Sauron-esque Horned King is a spellbinding highlight: The Black Cauldron is at its best when focusing on the hellish villains.

Acting:

With a deep-voiced death growl, John Hurt steals the show as the Horned King. He is evil personified, an epic stand-in for Satan. The rest of the voice cast is a mixed bag that ranges from annoying to unintelligible. Why do so many characters sound muffled? Either my copy of the DVD was defective, or the sound engineering was horrible.

Writing:

I’ve never read Lloyd Alexander’s five-book Chronicles of Prydain source material, but apparently The Black Cauldron is a poor adaptation, barely resembling the storyline at all. With nine writers credited for a screenplay that underwent several years of rewrites, I can see how such a thing could happen. As a standalone film, The Black Cauldron lacks coherence, moves too fast and throws logic and lore out the window. The only elements that really work are the Horned King sequences. Everything else feels haphazardly slapped together, with unfunny comic relief and a generic romance detracting from the storyline’s overall enjoyment. Luckily, and this is an attribute that very few films can say, the animation is so fantastic that the storyline is easy to ignore.

Music:

The orchestral score from legendary composer/conductor Elmer Bernstein features the ondes Martenot, an old electronic instrument that perfectly evokes the spooky, supernatural horrors that lie at the heart of The Black Cauldron. (Bernstein will use these motifs again in Ghostbusters, albeit for different purposes.) It reminds me of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony, which is the greatest symphony of the 20^th century.

Ending (SPOILERS):

The final “cauldron-born” resurrection sequence was truncated after a test screening (too many scared kids, apparently), and so the Horned King’s goal of world domination is only realized for a few minutes. He’s thwarted just as quickly as the Night King and his army of White Walkers in Game of Thrones. Even still, it’s an epic conclusion with an appropriate happily-ever-after to finish things off.

“Perhaps it would interest you to see what fate has in store for you.” – The Horned King

Why The Black Cauldron gets a B+

One of my favorite childhood cartoons, along with The Secret of NIMH (1982) and Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998). Did the same for me with films as Deltora Quest (2000) did for me with books.

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