‘The Black Cauldron’ is ... weird
Have you seen the 1985 Disney film “The Black Cauldron”? If not, that’s not too surprising. It hadn’t readily been available until Disney+ added it to their streaming catalog, and before that, you probably had to find it on VHS at a garage sale somewhere. As a fan of high fantasy, I was excited to watch it. And from the opening prologue, I literally said aloud, “OK, let’s do this.”
But it was weird, man.
A young “assistant pig-keeper” by the name of Taran dreams of adventure and fame as a hero rather than his current existence as helper to Dallben the Enchanter. Dallben learns that the evil Horned King seeks the mythical Black Cauldron, said to entomb the soul of a demon and able to create an army of undead warriors (sounds dope, right?). Dallben uses his oracle pig (uhhhh?) Hen Wen to foresee this and orders Taran to flee with her safety. On the road, Taran is soon distracted by his own daydreaming and loses the pig to a pair of Gwythaints, the Horned King’s dragon-like creatures (wyverns to those who know the difference, *pushes up glasses*).
Taran gives chase and encounters a (very annoying) creature in the woods named Gurgi who wants to be his friend. When Gurgi refuses to go to the castle, Taran leaves him, calling him a coward. He finds the pig being held at the Horned King’s castle. He frees her, and as they’re making their escape, Hen Wen makes it into the moat, but he is thrown into the dungeons. There he meets Princess Eilonwy. They escape further into the castle’s catacombs where they find the tomb of the king and his magical sword. They also find an older bard named (*sigh*) Fflewddur Fflam who seems to have a lute that breaks a string anytime he lies. Does this ever really come into play? Nope. SOMEHOW those three escape, and the Horned King sends more Gwythaints to pursue them.
The full article is available in our e-Edition. Click here to subscribe.