We're at the second movie, which I have a much stronger emotional attachment to as well as much more vivid memories surrounding. There were things in this film that just stuck with me through my life, to a point where, a few years ago, I was trying to remember the movie with "that unicorn and the people who-" well, I won't give any spoilers, but I will say that everything I remembered originally came from this one movie.
Well, almost everything.
Man, that thing still freaks me out.
So let's look at the second movie featuring a brave little unicorn, and prepare to have your minds blown with how crazy animation from Japan was in the 1980s.
In case you forgot the concept, the West Wind summarizes the story pretty clearly when she shows up with Unico to drop him off on an island. Unico offended "the Gods" and they decreed he be banished. They sent the West Wind to perform this task, but she took mercy on him and now smuggles him from place to place, removing him before the Gods can find him and finish what they started.
Because apparently the Gods have nothing better to do.
Oh, and two things as this begins: First, she brings Unico to the island by flying over a small town, which if I remember correctly rather goes against the idea of keeping Unico away from people. His whole schtick is he makes anybody he meets really happy, so why would you put him on an island with an established group of people on it?
Second, apparently the West Wind has the power to wipe Unico's memory, presumably so he doesn't start pining for Beezle and Katie the whole film. But that's still rather harsh that Unico's leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him as he's taken away from people but he never gets to remember them.
The first creature Unico encounters is named "Melvin the Magnifi-cat" and I swear I didn't make that name up. I'm also not making it up when I say Melvin is apparently wearing two wooden blocks for earmuffs that don't even fit over his ears.
Melvin apparently also isn't very attentive, because it takes him a minute to realize that Unico is a tiny horse with a horn on his head, and the cat promptly flips out and tries to get away from him.
Again, it seems that only characters who are either "tough" to Unico or are bad guys are even the least bit concerned by the fact that he is what he is. However, the rest of his gang shows up, and Melvin decides that maybe Unico isn't going to kill him...so he promptly smacks Unico in the face a few times and the cats start chasing him. He barely manages to get away, and starts heading through the woods by himself.
As a rainstorm sets in, Unico tries to befriend some other forest animals, but they seem rather antisocial. Once the rain stops, he hears the distant sounds of a flute, and runs through the woods to see what the source is. At the top of a hill, atop the tallest tree, he spots a figure who seems to be dressed like Batman if, instead of a regular bat, one wearing a jester cap crashed through his window that fateful night.
The animals of the forest flock around to listen to the music, but when the cats show up they start yelling for the guy to cut it out. He apparently doesn't take this very well, and with a quick gesture turns one of the cats into...well, into this.
Just about ten minutes in and things are already weird.
The stranger turns the second member of the gang into a similar (if larger) "statue" leaving just Melvin. Melvin takes off in a panic, but he can't get away because the stranger slices down a hollow tree with his cape (!) and then shoots finger lasers at it magically turning it into a flying rocket bike.
No, seriously.
I told you this was going to be stranger than last time.
The stranger corners Melvin at the edge of a cliff, and Melvin tries to make a deal to stay alive, offering him his wooden headphones. That's right, they're headphones, now I remember. In one wooden box he keeps a tiny bird and the other one has a frog that he can smack on the head with a button to make them start to sing (in a bit of clever writing, one is the "tweeter" and one is the "woofer." I'll let you sort out which is which).
The stranger winds up agreeing to let the cat serve him, as he needs someone to help him find other forest animals to turn into "living puppets." Unfortunately, the stranger can't seem to hit a moving target when it's the size of a rabbit or smaller, and when Melvin tries to point him towards Unico, Unico manages to get away and makes the two guys chasing him crash their tree into another tree.
Oh, and apparently the stranger is serving a "master" somewhere, which means we now have three layers of evilness going on.
Unico winds up carried downriver towards some houses, and the stranger (who identifies himself as "Toby," making him officially the dumbest named villain of all time) meets up with his master, Lord Kuruku. Now, the last time we had a real bad guy, he wound up being a gigantic demonic monster with a battle axe taller than most houses. What do we have now?
Pfffhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Okay, that's creepy, but man, they really aren't living up to what was established last time. Between the bug-eyed leader and "Toby" we don't really have as much of a threat this time.
Lord Kuruku tells Toby to hurry up and gather up the animals, after which he can move on to turning people into "living puppets" as well. When Kuruku leaves, Toby seems to feel torn about using his powers on people, but Melvin has no trouble with it.
Meanwhile, Unico wakes up at the home of a small family, and we spend the next few minutes having the idea that there's a "missing older brother" beat into our heads. Anyone who knows kids movies knows that you can't really be too subtle when it comes to young minds as they can't pick up on the same nuances and clues as a trained mind, but this is pretty thick.
The family has a small daughter named Sheri (who actually looks like a young girl, unlike what Unico turned Katie into) who takes a shining to him and decides to keep him as a pet. The next morning, once past his initial shyness, Unico introduces himself to Sheri, and without even batting an eye Sheri accepts that a strange animal with a horn talked to her. What is wrong with the humans in this world? Other strange and/or evil creatures seem puzzled by the existence of Unico, but normal people just shrug it off like it happens every day.
A storm rolls in, and while everyone listens to the thunder crash overhead, the door suddenly opens and in walks...
a) Beezle, finally hunting down his best (and only) friend just to face the heartache of Unico having no memory of him or the adventures the had together!
b) The Night Wind! Because that character has to do something in this movie series, doesn't she?
c) The Old Woman! It turns out she was a witch and she ate Katie, and now she's trying to make sure there are no witnesses. But once it's discovered that Unico has no memory, it'll be fine and she'll leave.
d) The Kool-Aid Man.
Nah, it's Toby, and wouldn't you know it, he's Sheri's long lost brother!
I'll pause now for your gasps of amazement to die down.
He shows off a few magic tricks to his family, including making a small log turn into a doll, swinging a door shut, and making flowers sprout out of his father's head and face. Prrrrrobably not the best way to get your family to welcome you home warmly, Toby.
Toby swears to his family that they can now live comfortably forever with his power, turning objects into gold and dressing them in the best outfits. However, his family declares that Toby's magical powers "aren't right," which is rather hypocritical considering you have a talking unicorn living in your house.
The (un)happy reunion is interrupted by the appearance of Lord Kuruku, and while Toby tries to get his family to flee, his parents determinedly stand their ground. Toby manages to hide Sheri behind him, but Kuruku decides that the two people he can see are a great addition to his collection and promptly zaps them.
I like that the flower still sticks out of the father's nose. It's a cute touch in a creepy moment.
Once Kuruku leaves, Toby quickly leaves and tells his sister she has to hide in the forest or he'll have to turn her into a puppet as well. Sheri calls for Toby to restore their parents, but Toby instead hops on his new rocket-powered tree bike and takes off into the village, zapping all the people in their homes and turning them into "puppets" even as he thinks to himself that only Kuruku has the knowledge and power to turn them back to normal, but that he'll make it up to his sister one day.
Once everyone in the village is transformed, Toby heads to the shore and starts to play his flute again, and what happens next creeped me out even more than the giant demon from the last movie.
All of the "living puppets" get up and start marching towards the docks. Once there they march straight into the water and climb into a large ship waiting just out a ways into the water. Unico and Sheri manage to sneak on board as Toby takes the helm, and the large ship heads out. After a while, the fogs part, and they approach a large town... built out of living puppets.
Here's how it broke down in my head:
1) Kuruku's obviously been doing this for a while, because it's a huge area. I mean HUGE. I half expect to see one of the Belmonts running down a hallway looking for Dracula.
2) The puppets are "living" puppets which means they might still be somehow aware of what's going on around them, so they're stuck staring out, unable to move, holding up a support column for a ceiling made out of other people.
3) How has he captured this many people without anybody noticing a huge chunk of the local population vanishing?
This whole set-up absolutely terrified me as a child...though, the fact that my favorite toys in the world were Legos probably didn't help. If I remember right, I put my Legos away and didn't touch them again for several weeks after watching this movie.
Sheri and Unico try to find Lord Kuruku to plead with him to turn the people back to normal, but things hit a snag when they're eaten by a giant clockwork dragon an- I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
The dragon spits them out into a pit and they wind up meeting with Lord Kuruku at the bottom. Lord Kuruku summons Toby to deal with them, but Toby strikes a deal with Kuruku and instead turns Sheri into a giant doll and Unico into one of those little toys with wheels you pull behind you with a string. He stores them away, saying he'll be back to free them later (since he, y'know, knows "toy magic" just not "puppet magic" or whatever).
Lord Kuruku shows up and summons forth all of his "toys" and we get into an absolutely bizarre musical number with spinning toys, "doll Sheri" dancing around and toy-Unico flying around.
...this is getting a bit bizarre even for me.
Meanwhile, the "living puppets" start coming together and build up the walls further, and Kuruku cackles and pledges to turn every living thing in the world into a living puppet.
...man, this looks bleak, and we're only halfway in on this movie. It took this long just to find the start of a plot in the last one.
We'll pick this up again tomorrow with the exciting conclusion and discover just what Lord Kuruku's deal is, if Toby can ever stand up to his master, and how Sheri and Unico are going to return back to normal!
(I'm going to skip the "Good" and "Bad" this time so I can do a more in-depth look at them at the end tomorrow)
I totally remember these movies and yes they were both awesome and creeepy. heheh. good stuff
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