Butt News Movie Club #38: The Last Unicorn
Have a Taco!
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I’m not saying I didn’t love Disney movies as a kid1, but I’ve always been a bit of a Don-Bluth-and/or-Rankin/Bass-ass bitch. Now that I’m old and depressed I want everything to be happy and nice, but when I was young and resilient, craving a peek at the grown-up mysteries, I loved when things were a little spooky, a little unpredictable, a little depressing, a little R-rated! And The Last Unicorn was the horniest freakshow of them all that for some reason we let little kids watch in the 80s! I had The Last Unicorn on VHS and watched it a billion times, and I simultaneously remember everything about it and forget everything about it. What happens at the end?? Was it too sad so I always turned it off early? Time to find out!
We open in a magical forest and guess what—I AM HOOKED. An animal is grunting, a bird is chirping, there is a beautiful waterfall, a new day has dawned. Just how I like it. Is this the most beautiful movie ever made??? Make America Hand Drawn Animation Again!
An old hunter and a young hunter gallop through a glade and the old hunter says he’s not liking the vibe—“creatures that live in the unicorn’s forest learn a little magic of their own in time, mainly concerned with disappearing,” and the young hunter is like lmao unicorns only exist in fairy tales u idiot, this is just normal forest. And old hunter goes first of all don’t talk to me like that you little fucker, but also, “then why do the leaves never fall here? Or the snow? Why is it always spring here?” and YEAH THOSE ARE GOOD QUESTIONS THAT YOU’D THINK SOMEONE ELSE WOULD HAVE NOTICED!!!!! Young hunter says whoa you’re right let’s gtfo.
Old Hunter to Presumed Unicorn: “Stay where you are, poor beast! This is no world for you! Stay in your forest and keep your trees green and your friends protected! And good luck to you, for you are the last!”
How does he possibly know that? This guy knows the exact wild unicorn population but his best friend doesn’t even think unicorns are real? Anyway, then airhorn! LAST UNICORN ON SCREEN! Voiced by Mia Farrow! And she nailed it, folks!
Last Unicorn: “I am the only unicorn there is? The last?”
Okay, awkward. She had NOT heard the latest.
SKREEEEEEEE it’s an eagle! And now it’s time for the theme song performed by the British-American rock band America! It’s still the opening credits and this movie is already so depressing lol. No wonder i’m a melancholy freak!!! I was about to say it’s crazy I never read this book by Peter S. Beagle (I don’t think), but typically a book is more depressing than a movie and even as a child I must have intuited that the book was more than I could take. I’m already crying!
The credits continue. I think the loss of long-form opening credits sequences devalues human workers! Make American Children Sit Through a Twenty Minute List of Film Industry Union Laborers Again!
This cast is elite. Alan Arkin? Jeff Bridges? Angela Lansbury?? A CRYING SQUIRREL?
We’re in the unicorn’s forest and all the animals are peacefully sleeping and chillin’. An owl says hoot hoot. The unicorn is wandering around monologuing and tbh I’m wondering if the other animals actually like her that much. She’s kind of a drag! “That cannot be! Why would I be the last? What do men know? Because they have seen no unicorns for a while does not mean that we have all vanished. We do not vanish! There has never been a time about unicorns. We live forever! We are as old as the sky, old as the moon! We can be hunted, trapped, we can even be killed if we leave our forests, but we do not vanish!”
“…Am I truly the last?” - unicorn finally starting to get last-pilled
Now there’s this extremely long scene where she talks to a butterfly wearing sunglasses, and it’s unfortunately a medley of niche cultural references from 1968. Even my father, himself a trove of the finest midcentury riffs, could never tell me what all this stuff was from! The butterfly is voiced by Robert Klein! That guy! He’s always playing a therapist in something. I’m not sure how much of this conversation I need to write down, although it is the part of the movie that haunts me most often in the pre-dawn gyre of insomnia: “HOLD TIGHT! HOLD TIGHT! HOLD TIGHT HOLD TIGHT!”
The important part for you to know is that the butterfly calls the unicorn his “wild Irish rose,” to which she takes offense, because unicorns don’t understand metaphor.
Unicorn: “Be a little respectful, butterfly! Do you know who I am?”
Butterfly: “Well, you’re a fishmonger! You’re my everything! You are my sunshine! You are old and grey and full of sleep, you’re my pickle-faced, consumptive Mary-Ja-HEEEEEEEEN!”
Unicorn: “Say my name, then. If you know my name, tell it to me.”
Just PUKED realizing that in the 2029 live-action remake they’re going to have the butterfly sing Destiny’s Child during this part!
The butterfly doesn’t read the room at all and just keeps fucking with her even though she’s plainly in existential distress, AND apparently it’s kind of a big deal to talk to a unicorn! You are totally beefing this meet and greet, brother!
Butterfly: “Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart! I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name!”
Unicorn: “Say it, if you know!”
Butterfly: “RUMPLESTILTSKIN! GOTCHA!”
Butterfly, please, this horse is in TEARS!!!!
The unicorn asks the butterfly if he’s seen any other unicorns in his travels, even one single unicorn, and THIS FUCKER GOES, “Oh have you seen the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man?” I’m sorry but FYI, unicorn, butterflies are NOT endangered. Smush this bozo!
He keeps fucking with her like this for a loooooong time, and even this brutal guilt trip doesn’t deter him: “It serves me right for even asking you. All butterflies know are songs and poetry and anything else they hear. I guess you mean well. Fly away, butterfly!”
The butterfly, unmoved, just sings, “Take the ‘A’ Train" while skateboarding around on a leaf, so she’s like NEVERMIND BYE I GOTTA GO FIND MY FRIENDS. And then he’s finally like okay, yes, wait wait wait wait wait, unicorn, “visible only to those who search and trust and generally mistaken for a white mare.” She gets all excited that he knew the definition of “unicorn” (almost anyone could do that!), and asks if he’s seen other unicorns anywhere in the world. And this jabroni says, “See you later, alligator!” Again, instant squish, no due process!
She finally really loses it. “BUTTERFLY, HAVE YOU SEEN THE OTHERS? WHERE HAVE THEY GONE? TELL ME WHICH WAY I MUST GO TO FIND THEM!”
He gets normal for one second and says, “No, no, listen, don’t listen to me—listen—you can find the others if you are brave. They passed down all the roads long ago and the Red Bull ran close behind them and covered their footprints.”
Unicorn’s like, the Red Bull? Exqueese me? WHOOOO is THAT? And the butterfly explains that the Red Bull used his horns to push all the unicorns to the ends of the earth, where they died or something. Then he flies away! Okay, bye bitch!
Unicorn wonders if she can actually find the other unicorns or if the Red Bull is just another stupid butterfly song. Signs are pointing to the latter, but then she’s like, hmm, it is true that I have literally zero friends and haven’t seen anyone but a badger in 500 years. What if all the other unicorns ARE trapped by the Red Bull and they need her help?? Trust your ‘stincts, babe!
So she decides to leave her magical forest and go try to find them. All the animals in the forest get together to watch her leave, like… mommy?????? I guess they’ll all get hunted to death while she’s gone! All these beavers and stuff are crying!
Again I ask: WE GAVE THIS TO CHILDREN? Specifically me??
It’s okay, though, because this horse is HOT. They hate to see her go but they love to watch her leave!
Unicorn tells her subjects, “I must go quickly and come back as soon as I can,” and she gallops away into the night. She gallops and gallops! Through green fields, through brown deserts, through wintry forests she gallops. She is very tired. At last she comes to a little farm and the farmer thinks she’s just a white mare so he tries to capture her and sell her at the fair.
Farmer (who, to be fair, is just doing his job and probably impoverished): “You’ll be the prettiest old mare anywhere!”
Unicorn (defensive): “MARE? MARE? ME? A HORSE? IS THAT WHAT YOU TAKE ME FOR? IS THAT WHAT YOU SEE?”
You know where there’s no capitalism? IN THE UNICORN’S FOREST.
She beats his ass and runs away. She forgot that men can’t see unicorns, which seems to me like a good sign, because then maybe there are more unicorns but they just look like horses to idiots. Now there’s another walking/galloping medley to another song by the band America. This song is called “Man’s Road,” and it’s about when you’re walking man’s road and you say, “here I am on man’s road.”
She keeps walking man’s road, even when it’s RAINING, until she comes to a cozy glade and decides to take a nap. Unfortunately Mommy Fortuna’s midnight bitch carnival decides to show up RIGHT then, and she freaking STEALS THE LAST UNICORN FOR HER CARNIVAL!
Angela Lansbury is the dastardly Mommy Fortuna—another craven CAPITALIST—playing against type, which we of course love. Mommy casts a sleep spell on the unicorn and tells her hunchbacked henchman Ruhk and hired failson wizard Schmendrick to put the unicorn into a magic cage.
Now it’s carnival time! Ruhk leads tours—not his natural skill set tbh— and shows the customers all the spooky creatures: a manticore, a dragon, a satyr, a harpy, etc. Unicorn wakes up in her cage with a weird fake horn attached to her head next to her real horn, because otherwise she’d just look like a horse to 99.99% of paying customers. Just get a horse, then, Mommy! What the hell! Witches and their egos!
While Ruhk and the tourists are distracted, Schmendrick goes up to the unicorn and is like, “look at your fellow legends and tell me what you see.” And she’s like ok well first of all that manticore is just a sad lion and that satyr is actually an ape with a twisted foot—are these people stupid or something?
Last Unicorn: “Illusions, deceptions, mirages! Your Mommy Fortuna cannot truly change things!”
Schmendrick: “That’s true, she can only disguise, and only for those eager to believe whatever comes easiest.”
Cut to Ruhk showing off the supposed “Midgard Serpent—it’s got the whole world in its coils,” and all the people are like oooooh aaaaaaahh, but that doesn’t even make sense. How would it fit in a cage? Is the “whole world” in the room with us right now???
Schmendrick: “No, she can’t turn cream into butter, but she can make a lion look like a manticore for eyes that want to see a manticore.”
She can’t turn cream into butter?? Even I can turn cream into butter—it’s not that hard. Making a lion look like a manticore is definitely way harder! First step is you have to GET A LION. I’m already cooked!
Then Schmendrick plays his big trump card: “…just as she put a false horn on a real unicorn to make them see the unicorn!” Unicorn is like WHAT? You can see my real horn?
Schmendrick: “I know you! If I were blind I would know what you are.”
The unicorn is like lol ok virgin. Who are you anyway?? and he goes, “I am called Schmendrick! The magician. You wouldn’t have heard of me.”
Yeah no shit, dude, she hasn’t heard of anyone—she only knows two elk, two geese, two bears, and two owls.
The unicorn looks out the window of her cage and sees a scary shitting harpy with tits. I tried to get a picture of the shitting AND the tits at the same time, but it’s hard to see. Those little white dots are the shits. Also there are THREE tits, but I only got two in the frame. Sorry(?).
Unicorn is like yo that’s my friend!
Unicorn: “That one is real! That is the harpy Celaeno.”
Schmendrick says yeah unfortunately Mommy caught her with trickery just like you. But, he says, it was a BAD IDEA! Mommy messed with the wrong one!! That harpy is gonna get free pretty soon and fuck Mommy UP. “The truth melts her magic always.” Unfortunately she will probably also fuck up Schmendrick and Unicorn as well, because Celaeno is a fake friend!!!
He’s like, “Don’t be afraid! Schmendrick is with you! Do nothing till you hear from me.” And she says yeah I’m probably just going to keep standing here in my cage in which I am imprisoned.
Ruhk takes the tourists over to see the unicorn and they’re like wooooowwwww, especially the women. Women love unicorn. One woman is CRYING due to unicorn.
Now it’s nighttime, everyone is gone, the harpy’s eyes have gotten all red and glowing, and Ruhk is freaked out. “Get rid of her, Mommy!” Do you think she’s his real mommy? There is a resemblance.
Mommy says NO WAY, JOSE. “No other witch in the world holds a harpy captive, and none ever will. I choose to keep her! I can turn her into wind if she escapes, or snow, or seven notes of music!”
Kind of doesn’t seem like you can??
Mommy (to harpy): “You’re mine! If you kill me, you’re still mine! Heeheeheeheehee!”
That’s one of those things losers say that doesn’t really mean anything.
Mommy goes over to brag to the unicorn about the harpy, and the unicorn gives her a dire warning: “Do not boast, old woman. Your death sits in that cage and she hears you.” But Mommy doesn’t even care! “Oh, she’ll kill me one day or another, but she will remember forever that I caught her and I held her prisoner, so there’s my immortality, eh?”
I mean I guess??????
Then Mommy Fortuna drops a bombshell—she knows the unicorn is out hunting for Red Bull (how???) and she is literally kind of friends with him! But instead of offering to email-intro them, Mommy’s like, “The Red Bull of King Haggart?… Well, he’ll not have you. You belong to me.”
Unicorn says GET REAL, GRANDMA: “You know better. Keep your poor shadows if you will, but let me go. And let her go. I cannot see her caged. She is real, like me. We are two sides of the same magic. Let her go.”
No offense, girlie, but the toothless lion, the ape with a twisted foot, and the elderly snake are all “real” as well! You think you deserve special treatment because you’re magic? If anything the other guys should get more help escaping Mommy Fortuna! Something to think about!
Mommy says she’d quit show business before she set the unicorn and the harpy free. In fact, she thinks the unicorn is safer there in the carnival and she should thank Mommy for protecting her! The nerve!
Schmendrick comes jogging back to the unicorn cage and is like, “Sorry but I couldn’t get away any sooner.” Get away from WHAT? What were you doing? Juggling??
The unicorn is like, Schmendrick, this sucks. I’ve never been forgotten before. Why do these people need this weird fake horn?? And Schmendrick says, “It’s a very rare person who’s taken for what he truly is.”
I’m not positive what that means, but it feels very profound! Pop off with your interpretations in comments!
Case in point, Schmendrick says that Mommy underestimates him as a magician, but he’s actually as “real” as the unicorn or the harpy (debatable). To prove it he does a spell but it’s just another DUMB ILLUSION where he makes her home forest appear around her, but then it disappears and she’s still in the cage. I would punch and kill.
Schmendrick: “Sorry, I would have liked that to be the spell that freed you.”
Oh, would you? Would YOU have liked that?
He tries again with another spell: “The bars are now as brittle as old cheese, which I crumble and scatter so!”
He grabs the bars but he’s actually turned them to HOT CHEESE and they burn his stupid hands. The unicorn tells him to try again, so he whistles and throws some magic powder into the air. That seems like it’s doing something and for a second he’s like hell yeah. But then, nope, it’s SHRINKING THE CAGE! Schmendrick is about to STOCKTON RUSH THIS UNICORN, AND SHE’S THE LAST ONE.
He barely saves her from being squished by his own incompetence, but for some reason (scarcity mindset), the last unicorn is still encouraging this peanut.
Unicorn: “The spell was wrong, but there was true magic in it! Try again!”
Schmendrick: “My dear, you deserve the services of a great wizard, but I’m afraid you’ll have to be glad of the aid of a second-rate pickpocket.”
Then he reaches into his pocket and had the freaking keys to the cage this whole time?? He stole them from Ruhk like an hour ago and now he’s just been beta testing garbage magic on a live unicorn? WIZARDS AND THEIR EGOS.
Even the magic cage lock roasts him: “Some magician.”
Schmendrick opens the cage and lets the unicorn out and she disappears the fake horn. Then Ruhk comes running and is like ok, Schmendrick, I give up on your riddle—why is a raven like a writing desk? And then, with genuine hurt feelings, he says, “The cage! you have taken my keys!” One of the saddest parts of the movie! He thought Schmendrick really wanted to play riddles with him!
Ruhk says Mommy is going to make Schmendrick into a necklace for the harpy, so Schmendrick attacks Ruhk to buy the unicorn some time even though grappling is not his strong suit, being a noodle. Unicorn runs around and frees all the creatures.
“You couldn’t turn cream into cheese, you Schmendrick, you!” - Ruhk, strangling him
I feel like you guys are really overestimating the difficulty of working with dairy products. Why the fixation?
All the animals run off into the night, which I support in the abstract, but is this a good habitat for a chimpanzee? Could we get an update? Hello, the Dodo dot com?
Schmendrick beans Ruhk with his own keys and the unicorn goes over to the harpy’s cage to free her. The harpy’s like, “Set me free, we are sisters, you and I,” so of course the unicorn does it. The harpy busts out of the cage and starts flying around like she’s going to kill the unicorn, but then Mommy comes outside TALKING SHIT: “You never could have freed yourselves alone! I held you!”
The harpy says fuuuuuck this bitch I’m gonna get her ass! She eats Mommy and then she eats Ruhk, RIP. He never got to find out the answer to the riddle. And neither did I!
The unicorn tells Schmendrick to come with her and walk calmly away: “You must never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention.” Not to be a tiresome pedant about every scene, but doesn’t running kind of attract anyone’s attention??
Schmendrick says he regrets letting his old boss get eaten by a tit-monster, but the unicorn says she isn’t capable of feeling regret. “I can feel sorrow, but it’s not the same thing.”
She catches Schmendrick up on what’s happened so far in the movie, because I guess he was in the bathroom: “A butterfly told me of a Red Bull who pushed all the other unicorns to the ends of the earth, and Mommy Fortuna spoke of a King Haggard, so I’m going where they are, to learn whatever they know.”
He’s like hey how about we road trip together? I get to hang out with you and that’s my reward for letting you out of the cage. She’s like um I guess, but I wish you’d asked for something else. LOL.
Schmendrick: “That’s okay—you couldn’t have granted my true wish.”
Unicorn: “I cannot turn you into something you are not. I cannot turn you into a true magician.”
Schmendrick: “That’s all right, don’t worry about it.”
Unicorn: “I’m not.”
L M A OOOOOO
Unicorn asks Schmendrick what he knows about King Haggard, and he’s like all I know is he lives in a wasteland by the sea and his kingdom used to be nice “before he came” but “the minute he touched it it became hard and gray.” I have that same effect but on men.
Then she asks about the Red Bull and he says, “I’ve heard too many tales, to tell you the truth—I’ve heard that the bull is real, that the bull is a ghost, I’ve heard that the Red Bull protects Haggard or else that it keeps him a prisoner in his own castle. There are so many stories.”
How has everyone heard of the Red Bull except this unicorn? And don’t say it’s because she lives a solitary magical life in the forest. Literally EVERY OTHER UNICORN ON THE PLANET has heard of him! It’s the whole plot!
They walk and Schmendrick hums and juggles. He says they’re in very dangerous country—even Mommy would never go there! Just then, some outlaws come galloping out of the woods, so unicorn and Schmendrick split up. Schmendrick is captured.
Cut to the outlaw camp, where they’re having rat soup for dinner again. The kidnapper, whose name is apparently JACK JINGLY, delivers Schmendrick to their leader, Captain Cully.
Captain Cully: “Well, Jack Jingly!”
These guys seem way less dangerous than Mommy Fortuna! Not to cast doubt upon the street smarts of Schmendrick!
Cully tells his girlfriend Molly Grue—the camp’s woman—to add more water to the rat soup because they have company. And here comes Molly Grue, giving one of the greatest voice acting performances of all time!!!!!! Her raspy little sad squeak rings in my heart forevermore!
Molly’s like um we literally are on day three of the same rat, and you want to feed this random juggler? DIVORCE.
Molly (re: Schmendrick): “Who’s this long lout? I don’t like the look of him!”
Schmendrick has already heard of Cully (can we go back to a time when we had FAMOUS THIEVES instead of influencers?) and Cully is flattered, but Molly Grue is not convinced and wants to stab Schmendrick to death with her rat knife. But then Schmendrick says she’s beautiful, so she changes her mind!
Cully says Schmendrick should hang out by the fire and tell all the cool Captain Cully stories he knows, and then goes ahead and drops one of the great unsolved mysteries of 20th-century culture:
“Have a taco”?????
WHY DOES HE SAY THAT?
AND WHY DON’T WE TALK ABOUT IT?
LAS CULTURISTAS CULTURE AWARDS, HELLO???????
Especially in this internet age, it’s hard to find forgotten gems of pop culture that that guy who recaps 7th Heaven hasn’t already made a TikTok about, BUT I THINK I GOT ONE.
Whyyyyyyy does he say have a taco?
It’s already a plot point that they’re having rat soup for the third night in a row. They are famously having rat soup!!!!!!!!!!!!
The unicorn watches from the woods and has FOMO.
tfw everyone is hanging out without you
Cully says his minstrel was just about to inspire everyone by singing about one of his big adventures of bold Captain Cully and his men. The men are like GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE because they hate Willy the minstrel.
Molly: “Willy! Sing us a true song! Sing us one about Robin Hood!”
Cully (threatened, sexually): “There is no Robin Hood! Robin Hood is a myth! We are the reality!”
Schmendrick IMMEDIATELY decides to conjure an illusion of Robin Hood and his Merry Men doing a parade through the campsite, and, like, why though? The bandit king who is very kindly not stabbing you, and apparently is offering you his secret taco while everyone else is eating rat, is obviously feeling insecure and cucked by his girlfriend’s lust for Robin Hood! Maybe pay attention to where your rat is buttered!
Schmendrick’s technique for summoning Robin Hood is to just say, “magic do as you will,” which seems both lazy and dangerous. But it works! All of Cully’s bandits run away chasing fake Robin Hood and Schmendrick is like LOLOLOLOLOOOOOL. Now Cully and Johnny Jingles are mad at Schmendrick so they tie him to a tree and leave him to die. Time for the worst scene in cinema! I had to delete a sentence earlier where I wrote that “every frame of this movie is a pleasure,” because I forgot about this!
Schmendrick doesn’t care about getting, essentially, sentenced to death—he’s still all geeked on having successfully done one magic. He yells, “I don’t even care! [says random magic words].”
And the tree transforms into a huge, wet, sexual, purple tree woman who is squozing Schmendrick’s face between her huge, wet, purple breasts, and the best thing I can say about her is at least she doesn’t have nipples.
Tree: “There is no immortality like a tree’s love.”
Schmendrick: “Help, unicorn, where are you?”
It’s 30 years later and I still don’t know how to process this. The unicorn shows up and the tree gets JEALOUS, like on Love Island when Huda kissed Ace as part of the challenge and Chelley lost her mind for like nine episodes. The tree screams, “She shall never have you, the hussy!!!! We will perish together!” and tries to suffocate Schmendrick with her jugs, so the unicorn turns the tree back into a tree. First useful skill I’ve seen from the unicorn all day.
Now Schmendrick is SO PROUD of having done true magic even though it was the grossest shit of all time and that spell needs to be immediately made illegal! They leave and run into Molly Grue, who does her famous (to me) SO SAD monologue about being old.
Molly: “Where have you been?”
Unicorn: “I’m here now.”
Molly: “And where were you 20 years ago? 10 years ago? Where were you when I was new? When I was one of those innocent young maidens you always come to? How dare you? How dare you come to me now? When I am THIS?”
No doubt that The Last Unicorn makes women feel something about our lost youth and lost time!!! But, sorry, what does an actual unicorn actually do when it appears to you in your youth? Say hi? Confirm you’re a virgin and then leave? Wow, thanks!
Schmendrick tells Molly Grue that this is the last unicorn in the world and Molly’s like, “It would be the last unicorn in the world that came to Molly Grue. It’s all right, I forgive you.”
Um yeah I’d hope so! This unicorn doesn’t even know you!
Molly says she’s going with them and Schmendrick is like, “you can’t come with us, we’re on a quest!” Molly and the unicorn both laugh at Schmendrick. Just girlie things.
Schmendrick: “We are traveling to King Haggard’s country to find the Red Bull!”
Molly: “Well, you’re going the wrong way.”
Molly, weren’t you in a whole MARRIAGE?
They walk until they can finally see King Haggard’s castle in the distance, so they walk some more, and you know what that means! Another hit rock song by the band AMERICA! Actually it’s just “Man’s Road” again. BOOOO. The people (me) crave more hits! At night, the unicorn has bad dreams about the Red Bull, and honestly same.
Then there’s an eclipse or something? The light turns red and oh shit it’s the Red Bull! He comes out of the sky and they’re all like… Ooookay so he’s a real bull?? I thought it was a nickname like the Iron Sheikh or the Macho Man Randy Savage! The Red Bull chases the unicorn around, and he’s winning.
How did he find her so fast? Does he have a unicorn detector? What kind of bull is this??
Molly Grue is like, “do something!” and Schmendrick, reasonably, says, “What can I do? Do you think the Red Bull likes card tricks?”
Molly says he has all the power he needs—remember when he changed that tree into a slut? Schmendrick is like ok fine and says his catch phrase—“magic do as you will”—and the magic is like sure boss and turns the unicorn into…
A hot naked chick!!!!!!!!!!!
I feel like the magic has an agenda, you guys!
The bull gets confused and walks away like my dog when a treat falls through the boards on the deck. Molly Grue starts screaming at Schmendrick, like, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” as though she wasn’t just begging him to do something???? He saved the unicorn’s life! What did YOU do, MOLLY?
He says it’s no biggie—he’ll change her back into a unicorn when the power comes to him.
Molly: “I didn’t know you meant to turn her into a human girl!”
Schmendrick: “The magic chose the shape, not I!”
Molly: “You’ve lost her! You’ve trapped her in a human body! She’ll go mad!”
Why does everyone in this supposedly unicorn-less universe know so much about unicorn science??
Unicorn (waking up): “What have you done to me?”
Schmendrick: “I couldn’t think of anything else to do to save you.”
YOU JUST SAID YOU DIDN’T PICK THIS SHAPE. I’m trying to defend you here!
Schmendrick says “the magic knew what it was doing,” and that in a human body the unicorn actually has a chance of getting into the castle and getting King Haggard to tell her what’s up with the other unicorns, which seems kind of reasonable to me idk.
The ex-last-unicorn says she wishes he had let the Red Bull drive her into the sea instead, or fed her to the harpy. Okay, lady. Calm down.
Ex-Unicorn: “I can feel this body dying all around me!!!!!”
You know what? I guess that’s fair if you were immortal and then you got shoved inside of a rotting monkey.
She says she’s more afraid of her human body than she was of the Red Bull, and yet again I say same.
They finally get to the castle, which is gross and NOT cute. King Haggard and his son, Jeff Bridges, are watching from the balcony, bitchily.
Haggard: “A man and two women coming here?”
Jeff: “The young girl, she looks so strange… she has a newness.”
Like, what is the point of this castle? Do you have subjects? Farmlands? Relationships with other kingdoms? Do you defend the realm from sea invaders? I hate when a fantasy thing has no CONTEXT! It’s like orcs in Lord of the Rings—what do they DO all day when there isn’t a war on??
Our party encounters two guards at the gate and Schmendrick is like hi this is the Lady Amalthea and we gotta talk to King Haggard and the guards are like hummina hummina a-ooga ok come on in off the street and just MEET THE KING, a.k.a. pretty privilege in action (#dobetter).
Inside the castle there’s a horrible screaming and shaking and one of the guards is like, “Don’t worry, it’s all right, it’s just the bull.” OH, SURE, OK. I certainly am comforted!
Schmendrick says that the “throne room” looks like a rotted tomb, and these yahoo guards better take him to the king posthaste, but then the two guards reveal that they were King Haggard and his son, Jeff Bridges, all along! The king explains that his court consists of four men-at-arms and one magician. Schmendrick is like damn that doesn’t sound fun AT ALL. Haggard claps back, countering that he tried everything and it didn’t make him happy and he wants nothing near him that does not make him happy, okay?
King Haggard’s magician is named MABRUK, “the magician’s magician,” and so far the king does not want to replace him with Schmendrick because Mabruk’s magic is always on fleek. Molly Grue, who is still there by the way, says that obviously Mabruk doesn’t make the king happy because, “well just look at you,” and Haggard is like, you know what? You ate with that. Diva down, parentheses me. You’re hired.
Speak of the devil, Mabruk appears, and he says oh, hey, Schmendrick, and doesn’t explain why he knows him? But then he’s like oh yeah, Schmendrick the famous talentless fraud, which, why would someone be famous for that? Was he on Worst Cooks in America but for wizards, rest in power Anne Burrell? The king then tells Mabruk the bad news, using his signature catchphrase: you’re fired. He wants to smell what the Schmendrick is cooking for a while.
Mabruk gets mad and brews up a little storm inside the throne room, but Lady Amalthea glows her horn-hole at it and it dissipates. Mabruk, who has somehow seen the ex-unicorn-in-human-body-horn-hole-storm-banishing trick before (HOW?????), thinks this is the funniest shit ever and he laughs and laughs. Jeff Bridges tries to repair the vibe by ushering Mabruk out: “Come on, old man, I’ll write you a reference.” A reference to who? Another king? A… wizard… store? What is the system of governance in this region??
Mabruk spanks Haggard’s ASS (verbally) on his way out: “Haggard, I would not be you for all the world! You have let your doom in by the front door! But it will not depart that way. Farewell, poor Haggard. Farewell!” Then he disappears.
Haggard goes to talk to Lady Amalthea and they agree that they both loooooove looking at the sea. Then he stares into her eyes and flips out: “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOUR EYES? WHY CAN I NOT SEE MYSELF IN YOUR EYES??”
Not everything is about you, dude!
Schmendrick tells everyone that the Lady Amalthea is his niece, but you can tell Haggard isn’t really buying it. He suspects she might be a special someone in disguise… like maybe… first name Last, last name Unicorn???
Haggard tells the new guests that they may come and go as they please, and they don’t even have to worry about barging in on him changing with his wiener out because “my secrets guard themselves.” So I guess they just live there now. No credit check!
Jeff Bridges notices that the Lady Amalthea walked here barefoot wearing only Molly Grue’s dirty bathrobe, so he’s like, “I know where there is some cloth, fine satin—you could make a dress.” My man, she was a horse ten minutes ago! She can’t thread a bobbin!
Now there’s another America song (“Where Do Unicorns Go?”) and a montage of Jeff Bridges getting relentlessly friendzoned by the woman-horse while Molly Grue does backbreaking unpaid household labor with NO HELP help from peg-leg cat. Jeff Bridges slays a dragon hoping that will impress Amalthea, which she HATES because that was another sacred immortal just like her and the harpy! He presents her with the dragon’s pelt and she’s like, “That was my piano teacher!!!”
Schmendrick does some card tricks for Haggard, which he kind of likes. Jeff Bridges complains to Molly about how Amalthea didn’t like it when he killed the dragon, or any of the other things he’s tried: “giants, ogres, black knights, terrible tasks…”
It’s emotional labor that Molly doesn’t need right now, but at least he’s helping her peel potatoes for once. Molly says maybe the Lady Amalthea doesn’t care about great deeds and perhaps he should GET TO KNOW HER A LITTLE BIT AND ASK HER WHAT SHE LIKES. Jeff says he wishes to serve her and help her find whatever she came her to find, and Molly says he should just tell her that to her face. Jeff says he’d love to, but Amalthea never talks to him. (Attn: men, for future reference! Silence is actually a very clear answer!)
Molly, handmaiden of the manosphere, goes to Amalthea and is like hey you are hurting this guy’s feelings and he’s actually kind of nice. Unfortunately, though, this ex-horse has gone kookaburra, which Jeff would know if he paid attention to her actual personality for five fucking seconds.
Amalthea: “Molly, who am I? Why am I here? What is it that I am seeking in this strange place, day after day?”
And how did I know how to sew this dress??
Molly reminds Amalthea that she is a unicorn seeking the other unicorns and then Amalthea sings a song about being a woman:
Once I was innocent and wise and full of pain
Now that I’m a woman
Everything is strange
Tell me about it, sister!
I looooooove that they let her sing in her real voice. Not everything has to sound like a Disney princess!
Amalthea says she has to go to the bull and find out what he did with all her friends before she forgets she’s a horse forever. “But I don’t know where to find him! And I’m lonely!”
Okay, re: the first thing, he regularly shakes the entire castle you live in with his roaring, so maybe check the basement? Also your full-time simp was like, “oh, that’s just the Red Bull,” so presumably he knows where it lives????? Have you tried asking anyone in this castle?
Re: the second thing, I’m sorry :(
Question: do we ship Molly and Amalthea?
Molly tells Amalthea that Schmendrick has been searching every day for a way down to the Red Bull, and Amalthea is a HUGE BITCH about it. She says she expects no help from Schmendrick because he’s just the KING’S CLOWN NOW, and Molly gets mad in his defense. Good for you, girl! It’s hard to stand up to your idol/best friend/boss/horse!
Molly: “He is doing it for YOU! He plays the fool for Haggard trying to divert him from wondering what you are! You do wrong to mock him.”
Amalthea says sorry but she weaponizes her white woman tears and runs away.
There’s a crash of thunder and everything turns red again. Peg-leg cat shows up and explains that the Red Bull is going out (to the club)—“he goes out every sundown”—to hunt for the strange white beast that escaped him (cocaine). Like, good exposition, but surely she knows that by now? Amalthea has sewed a whole satin gown and Jeff bridges has murdered a dragon, a giant, a black knight, AND done terrible tasks! You expect me to believe this is their first sundown in the castle??
Oh, wait, then the cat says, “You know that purrrrrfectly well, so don’t be stupid.” Okay, fine. I should have let you finish.
Peg-leg cat says that cats cannot be deceived by appearances, “unlike human beings, who seems to enjoy it,” so he knew Amalthea was a unicorn all along. Then he makes Molly Grue carry him downstairs like this:
Peg-Leg Cat: “Soon there’ll be a human woman in that body and no unicorn at all ever again.”
Okay, harsh! Molly puts the cat on the kitchen counter and he puts his bunghole right on the potatoes. He explains that if Amalthea wants to save the other unicorns, she needs to take the “king’s way” down to the Red Bull. Molly asks what that means, and this furry boy has the audacity to be cryptic!!
Cat: “When the wine drinks itself, when the skull speaks, when the clock strikes the right time, only then will ye find the tunnel that leads to the Red Bull’s lair.”
Molly: “Why won’t you help me? Why must you always speak in riddles?”
Cat: “Because I be what I be!… and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer.”
Molly’s like fine, whatever, and then I guess she goes and searches for clues off-camera, because we quickly cut to her telling Schmendrick that she’s found the skull from the riddle. Great! Schmendrick is like I am 100% certain at this point that King Haggard knows Amalthea is a unicorn transformed into a lady, but Molly says that’s fine—they have to do this bull thing anyway! What else are they gonna do!!?
Jeff Bridges comes in to show Molly the poem he wrote for Lady Amalthea. Meanwhile Amalthea is having nightmares about when her frenemy the harpy ate Mommy Fortuna. After getting some constructive criticism from Molly, Jeff wanders around the castle working on his poem and runs into Amalthea. She’s like WHO ARE YOU and he’s like I’m Jeff Bridges—you’re just dreaming!
Amalthea: “I am always dreaming, even when I’m awake. It is never finished.”
Hey, could men have criteria beyond looks??? This lady is crazy, spooky, AND a huge downer!
Jeff asks her to tell him what she wants and she says: “Drown out my dreams! Keep me from remembering whatever wants me to remember it!”
Then he sings her a song and they do a weird sex game where they both release white birds from their different balconies and the birds fly around together to a magical dreamland and then transform into Amalthea and Jeff Bridges and she sees a vision of her horse-self by a pond but at this point she understands human horniness so she can’t go back to being horse and then they kiss even though she’s LITERALLY CRYING. He’s kissing a horse! Crazy!
Does she get her period?
Does she pee and poop??
What are the parameters???
Schmendrick is in the basement trying to figure out this fucking riddle, while meanwhile Jeff Bridges is upstairs BESMIRCHING HIM!
Jeff Bridges (to Amalthea): “Of course you’re of noble birth—anyone could see that. You can’t really be that ridiculous magician’s niece. That’s out of the question.”
JUSTICE FOR SCHMENDRICK! BOO! JEFF BRIDGES SUCKS!
Amalthea runs into the king on a turret and he’s like, “Love is slowing you down, my lady. I will catch you at last if you love much more!”
The king reveals that Jeff Bridges isn’t his real son—just a baby he found on the ground and figured he’d try it to see if baby would make him happy, but it didn’t. He says that only one thing has ever made him happy, and she says “what?” and he says, “DO NOT MOCK ME,” which is really presuming a lot from Amalthea, who doesn’t have a ton going on upstairs, no offense. Not the sharpest fake horn in the dark carnival, if you know what I mean!
Haggard is like I know what you came here for, but I have them and you can’t take them! And she’s like bro I genuinely do not know what you’re talking about! I lost my whole memory!! She is not freaked out enough by this encounter. Haggard starts screaming, “I KNOW YOU!” and says that every movement she makes betrays her as a unicorn turned into a woman.
What are the symptoms of that? Crying and being weird? I would love to read the WebMD article if you have the link.
Then the king brings Amalthea over to the edge of the turret and shows her all the unicorns swimming around in the ocean.
King: “The Red Bull gathered them for me one by one and I bade him drive them all into the sea! Now they live there and every tide carries them within an easy step of the land but they dare not come out of the water. They are afraid of the Red Bull. I like to watch them. They fill me with joy. The first time I felt it I thought I was going to die.”
Haggard told the Red Bull, when he drew up his bull contract, I guess, that he must have ALL OF THEM, for nothing makes him happy except unicorns. It’s such a dick move! You need ALL OF THEM?
My Insightful Analogy to This Modern World: You need A HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS??
Every time Haggard sees the unicorns in the water he is taken back to that morning in the woods when he first saw one, “and I am young in spite of myself.” Amalthea tells him she can’t see anything in the water except water, and Haggard says he’s going to throw her in the ocean if she doesn’t admit she’s a unicorn. That would be a crazy threat to receive if you really had no recollection that you used to be a unicorn! But then Haggard notices that now he can see himself in her eyes and starts screaming. Amalthea runs away: “He’s mad! Mad!”
Schmendrick comforts her by saying, “Don’t cry, I promise you we’ll find them,” which is a weird thing to say because 1) a second ago she didn’t remember that unicorns existed, and 2) we literally know exactly where they are because we were just looking at them from the turret.
They go down to the basement to talk to the skeleton from the riddle (Rene Auberjonois2). The skeleton is drunk, but he says he knows the secret way to get to the Red Bull, and even Jeff Bridges doesn’t know it because King Haggard is a gatekeeping bitch! This skull is CRYING laughing.
He tells them come back tomorrow because he doesn’t feel like showing them the bull hole now, but Molly says they don’t have enough time for that. Schmendrick mentions that they have wine (the skull’s weakness that apparently they discovered in their oppo research), but Molly admits that actually she couldn’t find any wine. She thought that maybe Schmendrick could turn some water into wine using magic?
The skull is like LMAO this jabroni can NOT turn water into wine. But Schmendrick does a little razzle dazzle and hands the skull a bottle! He glugs it! It’s delicious!
I don’t think I picked up on this as a child, but Schmendrick actually just pretends to transform the water into wine. He does some sleight of hand and pours it out on the floor because the stupid skeleton doesn’t have taste buds anyway. It works great!
Skeleton: “The way is through the clock.”
Molly is like oh, okay, so we wait until the clock strikes the right time? and skeleton is like, NO you just walk through the clock and the Red Bull is on the other side!
Okay, but, so, what was the point of the whole first part of the riddle if you just walk through the clock and it doesn’t matter what time it is???????
Molly starts pulling Amalthea toward the clock and for some reason the skeleton FLIPS OUT and turns evil and starts screaming, “UNICORN! UNICORN!” and narcs on them to Haggard! Hey, man, why do you care????? ACAB!
Haggard comes running with his sword, so Schmendrick sends Amalthea and Molly through the clock and tries to fight Haggard. Inside of the clock, Jeff Bridges steps out of the fog of time and is like, “You would have gone without me?” YES, BITCH, ALSO HOW DID YOU EVEN GET IN HERE?
I HATE HIS WHINY ASS.
Amalthea tells Jeff that she would have come back for him, but he’s like no you wouldn’t have. And sorry, but she can do whatever she wants! Just then Schmendrick shows up and he’s all stabbed from the king’s sword, but actually he’s fine. He asks Jeff Bridges how he got in there and Jeff is like, “what was there to know? I saw where she’d gone and I followed.” WHEN????? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
Back in the basement, Haggard destroys his own bull portal clock. So now he can never visit his bull again? Sad!
Schmendrick: “Now there’s no way back and no way out but through the Red Bull’s passage.”
That’s exactly what I said in my wedding vows!
As they wander through the Red Bull’s passage, Schmendrick explains Lady Amalthea’s backstory (i.e. hooves) to Jeff.
Jeff: “I love whom I love.”
Schmendrick: “That’s a nice sentiment, but when I change her back into her true form…”
“I LOVE WHOM I LOVE.”
Okay but that’s a horse.
Amalthea says she wants to grow old and die as a human because she’s not a unicorn and she loves Jeff Bridges and she won’t love him anymore when she’s a unicorn again. Schmendrick is like FINE, WHATEVER, OH MY GOD, but Jeff Bridges says NO.
Jeff: “I am a hero, and heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen… Unicorns may go un-rescued for a long time, but not forever.”
Molly suggests that perhaps Schmendrick should let Amalthea stay a human if that’s what she wants, but Schmendrick says that’s not how the story is supposed to go. So then Molly says Schmendrick doesn’t even CARE as long as he becomes a real magician at the end! Which is SO RUDE! This man was recently stabbed in defense of this horse!
Schmendrick: “WELL I WISH I DIDN’T! I WISH TO GOD I DIDN’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING BUT MY MAGIC! BUT I DO!”
The Red Bull (peeking around a corner like the Couples Therapy lady): “Mmmm. Say more about that.”
JK he just said CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP! He’s here to throw this homo sapien into the ocean!
Jeff Bridges steps in front of Amalthea and is like, “He knows! He knows!” Amalthea, terminally no help, trips and breaks her ankle, so Jeff Bridges gets in front of her and tries to fight the Red Bull with his sword, which doesn’t work AT ALL.
That’s your girlfriend.
Schmendrick is like MAGIC TIME! He does the spell to change Amalthea back into a horse and the Red Bull is sooooooooo mad. Jeff Bridges says he would still hit it! Unicorn runs out of the Red Bull’s cave toward the ocean.
SORRY, THE RED BULL JUST HAS A GIANT CAVE THAT OPENS OUT OF THE BASE OF THE CASTLE? YOU GUYS NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT CHECKING THERE? YOU NEVER LOOKED DOWN AT THE BEACH? THE “ONLY WAY” WAS THROUGH THE CLOCK?
The Red Bull tries to drive the unicorn into the sea while Jeff and Schmendrick argue.
Jeff: “Do something! You have the power! I will kill you if you don’t do something!”
Schmendrick: “All the magic in the world cannot help her now.”
Molly: “Then what is magic for? What is the use of wizardry if it cannot even save a unicorn??”
The other characters’ understanding of and faith in Schmendrick’s abilities is wildly inconsistent.
Schmendrick: “That’s what heroes are for.” [LOOKS AT JEFF]
Jeff: “Of course! That is exactly what heroes are for!”
He runs toward the Red Bull and immediately gets killed lmao. ZERO HELP. The king is watching and he isn’t even sad. I hate him!
I mean, I guess Jeff helped in an abstract way by teaching unicorn about the magic of horniness and then getting killed, because his death makes her so mad that her horn starts glowing and she advances toward the bull. Now SHE drives BULL into the sea! Which is not a good place for a bull that is made of fire. Why do I feel bad for the Red Bull now? He was just doing his job!
Now all the other unicorns come running out of the ocean! And their dainty pointy little hooves shake down King Haggard’s rotten castle! And he dies and all the unicorns go home to their forests!
The no-longer-last unicorn goes to say goodbye to her friends, and Molly is like, “Oh, you stayed, you stayed,” and yeah, it would have been so fucked up if she didn’t!!!!
Unicorn uses her magic horn to make Jeff Bridges alive again .
Jeff Bridges (waking up): “Father? I had that same dream!”
No, actually, sorry, your dad is dead and your house fell into the sea.
The unicorn doesn’t even stick around to let Jeff Bridges feed her an apple. She just stands on a rock in the distance and says, “I remember you! I remember!” and then she runs away. Okay, bye??
Jeff parts ways with Schmendrick and Molly for some reason. Why don’t you guys just stay together and be friends? Jeff’s even like, “I will miss you. I never had any friends before.” What if I told you there was a way for you to have permanent friends right now!? It’s called don’t ride away on your horse. Where are you even going? Not a one of you has a job or an intact hometown!
Jeff says he wishes he could see his horse girlfriend one last time to tell her how he really feels (blue balls3). Schmendrick reassures him that the unicorn will remember Jeff forever because she’s the only unicorn that knows what love is. Schmendrick and Molly go off together and romance is implied.
Cut to them camping and the unicorn shows up in the middle of the night to talk to Schmendrick! He’s her #1 friend. (Is this the whole reason they needed to artificially exclude Jeff Bridges from this camping trip? Because it would have been too awkward if her ex was there?) Unicorn affirms that he’s a real wizard now and asks if it makes him happy.
Schmendrick: “Men don’t always know when they’re happy, but I think so.”
The unicorn says she’s a little afraid to go home because she has known mortality and some part of her is still mortal: “I’m no longer like the others.”
Yeah, well, who cares? You clearly never associate with other unicorns seeing as how you didn’t know that they were literally ALL MISSING. So idk if it really matters? Unicorn says she knows regret now and Schmendrick apologizes for doing that to her. She says it’s all good because now the unicorns are back, baby! Then she’s like NEEEEEEEIGH! And she runs all the way back home and doesn’t say goodbye to Molly at all, which seems hurtful.
I guess this movie is about… patriarchy?
The end! NEEEEEEEIGH!
Lindy’s Top Ten, circa 1995:
#10 Cinderella
#9 The Aristocats
#8 Sleeping Beauty
#7 The Little Mermaid
#6 Bedknobs and Broomsticks
#5 Aladdin
#4 Beauty and the Beast
#3 Mary Poppins
#2 The Sword in the Stone
#1 Robin Hood
sorry
How could you forget that the unicorns are being held sea-hostage by CHRISTOPHER LEE AKA SARUMAN!
The castle ruling over nothing and Prince Lir going off to nowhere are both consequences of the movie cutting out the town of Hagsgate (the gate that all the hags use, obvs)