Watership Down was a novel made in 1972 by British author Richard Adams. Following the story of several talking rabbits who escape the confines of their soon to-be-destroyed warren, the story was a strange one that had the air and structure of a children’s story yet had themes and an atmosphere akin to an adult book, much like Animal Farm. With a premise that didn’t really seem to fall into a single category, the story become relatively popular despite no one wanting to distribute it, and this led to its own animated film version released in 1978. In a seemingly safe haven for rabbits, a runt rabbit named Fiver (voiced by Richard Briers) is able to see with his prophetic visions that their burrow will soon be destroyed. Though they are ignored by the head rabbit, Fiver and his brother Hazel (voiced by John Hurt) take a group of rabbits and escape. Now on the run and facing dangers at every turn, the group must survive larger than life enemies and down-to-earth threats in order to get to that perfect haven that Fiver continues to talk about, the hillside known as Watership Down. When the movie came out, no one really had a good idea what to describe it as. Kids who were expecting a cute bunny travelling story were quickly proven wrong with the grizzly tone and imagery, and most adults wouldn’t even know much about this story unless they’ve heard of the book. It was one of those semi-kids’ movies that scarred children for years and has earned a following just around that alone, even to the point of overhyping what the film is really like. Though the movie needed some improvements to make it a much more flowing engaging narrative, a book this intense and strange was bound to lead to something of worthy of watching outside of a gory kids’ movie.

The plot itself feels very much like a book narrative; in that there’s a lot of traveling, characters that are really quick to grasp, a lot of sequences that seem to pop out of nowhere and leave just as quickly, and an overall slow pacing to it. The book tackles a lot of themes based around region and communism, various aspects of this movie do capture that feel and clearly has a second meaning behind a lot of these great concepts yet the movie can never really go all the way with them because of this movie’s odd pacing. One of the film’s strangest problems is that the movie somehow feels both padded and rushed at the same time. The film’s obstacles to get to the end goal are structured and placed in moments where they can work in chapters, but as a film don’t stay long enough to be fleshed out. They’re too rushed to explain the finer details and yet the overall film is relatively uneventful outside of these moments, making it that horrible in-between of too fast and too slow. It helps in some of the world building and building up this more brutal tone, yet the movie is also strangely safe in how many characters die. However, the tone and characters are constructed and written in an adult enough way that the purposes comes across a bit smoother because of it. The movie feels like its runs on the emotions of the characters, yet the book has a lot of rules and talks of hierarchy and religions, so the two don’t always mesh well together. The atmosphere is one of the strongest elements of the movie; throughout the whole picture, there’s this ever-looming threat of death around every corner, it has that suffocating feeling that even when nothing dramatic is happening, it feels like it could at any time. Its soft, quiet and almost dream-like in moments, but also harsh, brutal and very authoritative the next.

The characters work in a different way most stories with this kind of set-up would usually operate. The movie itself doesn’t feel like its focus is ever on the characters themselves, more on the world and the religion made around them, so the characters are more observers or survivors for whatever situation they’re put in. With that idea in mind, the characters can be a bit more straightforward, the writing can be a bit safer, and they choose which one’s to focus on and which ones to leave as background roles. The one’s with focus are genuinely likeable and you don’t want to see them dead, but the others aren’t actually used to their strongest possibilities in that they don’t die, in a movie built up with a harsher tone, not that many main characters die in this movie, it’s a little wasted opportunity. There’s a bird that comes halfway through the movie that pretty funny even though his accent is incredibly hard to decipher. The movie is also home to a lot of great older actors that really sell this kind of atmosphere for a movie, one that fulls of dread and oppression, especially the great John Hurt as the lead role. The character designs on each rabbit is not the most detailed, but its unique enough that you can tell them apart with their different body colors and shapes and the voices are also stand-outish enough. The designs on some of the evil are especially fun to look at; while the main bunny cast are friendly-looking and cute, these ones are monstrous looking and over-exploited like mad because of it. The main evil rabbit is an especially gruesome design and would have definitely scared children who watched this growing up.

The animation style is far more on the harsher side of animation than anything that kids would usually expect; the palette is very cold and dark, the visuals can be pretty intense at times, and whenever gore is used, it’s quite in-your-face and feels very real looking. The style feels like it captures the essence and shading of a picture book, but one that would fit with this kind of story with a lot of shadows and harsher colors. Though some of the models of the characters can seem a bit lifeless at times, the backgrounds look very nice in the far-off shots and the softer lines and the sunset-like colors really give the movie some much needed pleasant imagery to balance the brutal stuff off of. Sometimes the weaker outlines on the character can sometimes cause them to get lost in the overcrowded backgrounds, but in other times, the imagery can get pretty surreal and even bloody in moments that it led to some memorable visuals. The writing has many great ideas and concepts that the book seems to follow through on pretty well as in concept, these ideas do work in how the character’s orderly system is constructed and even the religion aspect is pretty clear after a pretty well told opening, but in presentation it gets a bit lost in the overall picture and comes across as more confusing than anything. The gory moments in this movie as well as a few grim concepts and images does warrant the PG rating when that still meant something and keeps this movie in that weird middle area of looking like its for kids but not really that was very common the 80s. The audio can be pretty low throughout the movie, and since this is a very talky movie, not being able to hear them is a big weakness.

Watership Down is a good movie held down by a lot of things that don’t translate well from the book, the timeframe that the movie has which could have fleshed out things a bit better, the story could have flowed a bit better, and the overall confused tone makes it hard for people to distinguish who its for. With all those elements, it’s always going to be a different experience going into this movie for people as everyone will have a different approach and outlook towards how it is telling its story. The story ideas and world-building concepts can be intriguing, but the confused pacing and tone can turn people off pretty easily. But with some likeable characters, dream-like imagery and enough of a hard-core edge to make it that terrifying kids movie from years okay, but still with enough adult attitude and atmosphere to make it a complete product, it’s one that may offer just what someone’s been looking for. Decide for yourself and watch with bright eye and an open mind.