Thursday, October 23, 2014

Chilled Fall

It was cloudy and cold but not raining this morning when I headed to work. This continued for the rest of the afternoon, as people who avoided coming out tomorrow took advantage of the drier weather to do their shopping today. It was steady until rush hour, when the lines started to get much longer. Thankfully, the reliefs for both me and the other person who was getting off were right on time. I was able to hurry out with no problems.

When I got home, I made leftover sausage with spinach and mushrooms for dinner while watching The Black Cauldron. Taran, an assistant pig-keeper in a medieval-esque kingdom, must hide his porcine charge Hen Wen from the evil Black King, who wants to use her powers to find the Black Cauldron. The cauldron's dark magic could make him an army of undead warriors! Taran's daydreaming leads him to lose Hen-Wen, and when he chases after her, he gets her away but is captured himself. Now he, strong-willed Princess Ellonwy, and Flewfldor the Bard, joined by cowardly fuzzy critter Gurgi, must make sure the Cauldron doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

This was the first Disney animated movie I remember seeing in the theater that wasn't a revival of an older film. It's definitely not like most of their canon. The Horned King and those undead warriors, not to mention the witches and the general dark atmosphere, are genuinely scary. This isn't for younger kids, but if you have fantasy fans or older kids and teens who have seen every other Disney movie, try this one on them.

The classic Donald Duck short "Trick or Treat" is included on both versions of The Black Cauldron on DVD. Disney's only theatrical short that revolves around Halloween has Donald playing a rather nasty joke on his nephews instead of giving them treats. He runs into trouble when a witch sees what he did and decides to get revenge on him. A favorite of mine that's available on several different Disney horror-themed cartoon collections, as the finale of Disney's Halloween Treat on YouTube, and on the last Donald Duck Walt Disney Treasures set.

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