In 1985, Disney released its 25th animated feature, The Black Cauldron. The movie was based on The Chronicles of Prydain novels by Lloyd Alexander which were rooted in Welsh mythology. The film marked several firsts for the studio. It was the first Disney animated film to be given a PG rating and the first to use CGI, albeit in small amounts. It was also the first to nearly completely sink the studio after its release.
At the time the movie had the highest budget for an animated movie in history, $44 million which it failed to recoup at the box office. In fact, the film only managed to make $21 million after release and was shelved from being released on home video until 1998. Critics deemed the darker tone of the film inappropriate and frightening for its intended audience, even after a re-edit happened following test screenings where children ran screaming from the theater. The novel series was five books long and initially, sequels had been planned but they were hastily shelved after the failure of the film. However, the darker tone of the film is exactly why it stands out all these years later.
In the fictional land of Prydain, there exists a cauldron filled with the spirit of an ancient evil that The Horned King desires. With it, he can harness its powers to conquer the land. In Prydain, there is also an old wizard called Dallben who has a pig named Hen Wen that has powers that create visions and foresees the plan of The Horned King. Dallben sends his apprentice Taran away with Hen Wen to shelter her from evil and to prevent her magic from being used to locate the Black Cauldron. Unfortunately, Taran has a propensity for daydreaming and almost immediately allows here to be taken by the forces of evil.
The adventure begins as Taran follows the dragon-like creatures known as Gwythaints to the castle of The Horned King in order to rescue Hen Wen. Along the way, Taran meets Princess Eilonwy, Fflewddur-Fflam the bard and dog-like creature Gurgi, who refers to apples as crunching and munchings, looks like a little old man crossed with a sheepdog and is the best character in the film. Together, along with a magic sword that Taran finds in the castle, the four companions band together to find and destroy the Black Cauldron before The Horned King can use it to create his army of Cauldron-born, undead warriors that will be almost unstoppable if they are brought back to life.
The companions accidentally find the home of The Fair Folk in a beautiful and charming sequence where they fall through a whirlpool and find the brightly colored faeries home. The King of The Fair Folk, Eidilleg, happens to know the whereabouts of the Black Cauldron and sends surly inventor Doli with them to guide them on their way. They encounter witches that refer to them as various different waterfowl and learn what it means to believe in their abilities and have true friends. The characters that we are introduced to throughout the film are all truly unique and funny. They do share a lot of design elements with characters from other previous Disney animated works, but that is part of the charm of early Disney works. It also helped to make production swifter and easier.
It's easy to see why The Black Cauldron was deemed too scary for young audiences. The color palette is noticeably darker than previous Disney productions, with almost all locations being dark and dreary, foreboding places. The Horned King himself is also a terrifying prospect for the usual Disney audience. He looks not unlike if Skeletor had become a semi-rotted corpse instead of a skull-faced sassy man. The finale involving the Cauldron-born, although heavily edited after test screenings, is still a frightening spectacle as centuries worth of corpses spill out of the waters within the Black Cauldron to lay siege to the lands. Let us not forget the end of The Horned King himself, whose flesh is literally stripped from his bones as the cauldron sucks him inside of it.
If marketed to a slightly older audience, there is no doubt that The Black Cauldron would have been a much greater success. The adventure and fantasy elements are well thought out, the pacing of the story itself is excellent, especially as it is the plot of 2 books compressed together. The underlying theme of the movie is that you can be more than you seem. Taran is more than an apprentice pig handler, Eilonwy is not just a scullery maid with a magic bauble (no, that isn't explained in the film), Hen Wen isn't just a regular old pig and Gurgi isn't the coward he appears. Yes, there is magic and evil and the movie shows audiences that the world can be a dark place, but it also shows them that it won't always be, no matter the odds against them.