The first half of the 1980s were all about high fantasy movies, helped by the successes of the Star Wars saga and Dragonslayer. Rather than going the route that worked well for Disney, Disney decided to jump on the high fantasy bandwagon and create the Black Cauldron. This proved to be a huge mistake and mortally wounded Disney (although they would bounce back quickly) in 1985, almost ruining future chances of any other animated features by them.

A farm boy, Taran, is dragged into a job where he needs to find a cauldron and destroy it before the Horned King can get his hands on the cauldron and create an army to help him with world domination.

Honestly I have no idea what’s going on in this.

No, I do not agree that this felt similar to a Zelda game. Zelda has some medievalish charm but it didn’t come close to medieval fantasy for my eyes.

Thought of Star Wars with some similar plot points (death star/cauldron, boney army/clone army, Taran/Luke were both farm boys) showing up here. Also the dungeon part seems to be very similar to getting Leia out of the death star.

I wonder if that giant’s attire in Helloween’s Walls of Jericho album cover was based on the Horned King’s. Since that album came out in 1985 (several months after Black Cauldron) it might be true.

Yes yes, I know this movie scared the hell out of a lot of kids. I wasn’t one of those.

Doesn’t Eilonwy look similar to Aurora from Sleeping Beauty? Hell I almost wonder Taran was based on Prince Philip’s appearance.

1. Good animation.
2. Still better than Home on the Range or Frozen.
3. The Horned King is a good villain.

1. Does not feel like a Disney movie and feels more like something that was made by some people in Don Bluth’s animation studio.
2. Shut the fuck up Eilonwy. Man I swear I have to take Advil or something every time I watch this.
3. To me this was as boring as standardized testing (Blame the No Child Left Behind act and crack addicted politicians.) or working at Advance Auto Parts.