Just watched WATERSHIP DOWN for the first time. (Was once so ignorant about film & source material I thought it was about rabbits going to sea on a ship.) Bloody hell, it's vicious. I cried at the end. Still, not as traumatising as THE PLAGUE DOGS, which I blithely trotted off to see 20 years ago. - ThreadSky

annebillson.bsky.social • 20 days ago

Just watched WATERSHIP DOWN for the first time. (Was once so ignorant about film & source material I thought it was about rabbits going to sea on a ship.) Bloody hell, it's vicious. I cried at the end. Still, not as traumatising as THE PLAGUE DOGS, which I blithely trotted off to see 20 years ago.

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theselectfyrd.bsky.social•19 days ago

You think that's bad. My daughter loved horses and my only childhood notion of stories about them was the TV series 'Black Beauty'

So I bought her the book of the same name. I'm blamed to this day for traumatising her

shadievol.bsky.social•19 days ago

I loved the book, but the movie killed me! More gen X shared trauma.

lovemarmite.bsky.social•19 days ago

I was 8 in 1978, we went without adults to watch it at the cinema…I was absolutely traumatized and have never watched it since, not sure I even finished it that day, apparently kids in the UK in 70s had no supervision also saw Jaws 😱 and Grease 😂
Gen X kids really were a different breed

annebillson.bsky.social•19 days ago

British TV in the 1970s was packed with seriously weird children's series and terrifying Public Information films.

digitaldesert.bsky.social•19 days ago

Yeah, even people who read the book were taken aback by the graphic depiction of gore in the film when it first came out.

barlach.bsky.social•19 days ago

…and then there’s Shardik the Bear.

tehbob.bsky.social•19 days ago

I own a Watership Down/Plague Dogs double sided dvd so you can double feature them.

80's kids films explain Gen X SO MUCH

freeebooter.bsky.social•19 days ago

Both traumatising 😱

marriedtoamedium.bsky.social•19 days ago

saw this on a plane for the first time when i was 13. then read the book after. is so brutal and realistic. changed my outlook on so many issues. brilliant story, and raw animation...

tempermintpatti.bsky.social•19 days ago

Read it. (Actually don't maybe considering your reaction.) I read it so much from 9-12 it fell apart. The original cartoon movie is tame by comparison. And then I discovered Stephen King. And the world opened wide to things my parents would never know. lol
#GenX
Is WD a banned book?

annebillson.bsky.social•19 days ago

I don't think so.

tempermintpatti.bsky.social•19 days ago

Surprised. There's anti-fascist stuff and *mating* in there.

jnthnwd.bsky.social•19 days ago

I remember one of the most god-awful tragic Our Tune stories on the Simon Bates show ended with him playing "Bright Eyes"

maryannisannoyed.bsky.social•19 days ago

I think we must have watched it at school and were singing Bright Eyes at an assembly! Can’t think about the film without feeling very sad although i did always like the depiction of the Black Rabbit.

kaurifish.bsky.social•20 days ago

I read "Maia" way too young so never expected Adams to be wholesome.

ny2va.bsky.social•19 days ago

The book is excellent!

biggingerfox.bsky.social•19 days ago

Watership Down is brutal and heartbreaking. I saw it as a little kid in the cinema when it first came out I was 8. It never left me and Plague Dogs a few years later. It was the first instances of just because it’s a cartoon doesn’t mean it’s going to be funny/silly/nice.

ditupac3361.bsky.social•19 days ago

Watched it many years ago. Was my intro to the song "Bright Eyes" by Art Garfunkel

nomadicwriter.bsky.social•19 days ago

We were read Watership Down in around 9/10 years old. Think many kids wound up traumatised having read the book and then seeing the animated movie. Same goes for Ring of Bright Water and Tarka the Otter. Still love them, though, despite them scarring me emotionally for life. 😂

atlasparker.bsky.social•19 days ago

I think I was around 50 when I finally read the book. I loved it, but the ending absolutely killed me. 😢

meanlouise.bsky.social•19 days ago

The brilliant @cinefeline.bsky.social edited an open access scholarly volume on it that’s full of really fascinating essays about the history & context. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/watership-down-9781501376962/

meanlouise.bsky.social•19 days ago

But also, oh holy cats, the Plague Dogs. *whole body shudder*

michaelbrunstrom.bsky.social•19 days ago

The film of THE PLAGUE DOGS is better than the book, imo, and omits its happy ending.

amalola.bsky.social•19 days ago

My Husband suggested the family watch it when our kids were high school age.... they are still traumatised!

cellophaneskies.bsky.social•19 days ago

I loved this movie so much as a child, and then eventually I switched over to the book and haven’t watched it again since. But I can still see them all, every time I open the book again. That movie won’t let you go, ever.

adudecalledmomma.bsky.social•19 days ago

When I was about 5 or 6, Mom sat me down to watch Watership Down while she did chores. She came running back in not too long afterwards when I started screaming in terror. She learned that day that not all cartoon rabbits are like Bugs.

mick666.bsky.social•20 days ago

Just watched Legally Blonde again as it popped up on ITV2. Recommend as an antidote to Watership Down depression!

paulfranklin.bsky.social•19 days ago

WD is pretty full on, though at the time the Art Garfunkel song seemed to make it all right. The Plague Dogs is right up there with Threads in the pantheon of traumatic British misery fest filmmaking.

dangosnell.bsky.social•19 days ago

I am still getting over the trauma this movie caused me as a child.

puppetcinema.bsky.social•19 days ago

The BEST film. First thing this puppeteer bought for his house was a brass rabbit that looked like bigwig.

queenrayna13.bsky.social•19 days ago

I saw this at a young age and was traumatized like a good 80's kid.

joe5kstudioca.bsky.social•19 days ago

Meerkat Manor would like a word.

carlwinberg.bsky.social•20 days ago

Jesus, I had to watch it when I was FIVE. Explains a lot, actually.

hotdogitsclaire.bsky.social•19 days ago

This was the first movie I saw in a theater! My poor grandma thought "the bunny movie" would be a lovely time for the two of us. To this day I cannot watch animated movies about animals.

riloburu.bsky.social•19 days ago

i saw watership down accidentally as a kid. beautiful and striking as an adult, kid-me wasn't mega appreciative though

bambi-helen.bsky.social•19 days ago

I read The Plague Dogs when I was VERY young. Still scarred.

unklerupert.uk•20 days ago

Oh man, we had that at Friday cinema club at middle school on a Friday afternoon. I'm sure the teachers thought it was a nice bunny cartoon, destroyed all of us. We all walked home in silence. That was a weird weekend.

mikduffy.bsky.social•19 days ago

As a child I was dropped off for a screening of it in a school hall on 16mm. I fully expected it to be lovely but perhaps a bit sad. I had seen the video for Art Garfunkle's Bright Eyes and loved its pastoral imagery and cute bunnies. I was wholly unprepared, but deeply thrilled by its strangeness.

gargarin.bsky.social•19 days ago

It's one of my ur cinema memories, I was staying with my Nana in Hull on my own, probably around Whitsun . And she took me to see it. We had tea at a cafe and then a solo trip (without my brothers)to the cinema, such a treat. And yes it was a little full on, I would have been about 9 .

clairesnonsense.bsky.social•18 days ago

I was obsessed with this movie (and when I was a little older, the book) when I was a kid. I’d watch it every Sunday morning and then draw all the rabbits and stick them on the wall next to my bed. I can’t watch it these days because it makes me cry. God only knows why!

alldeaddave.bsky.social•19 days ago

Pair with the Swamp of Sadness for the quintessential Gen X trauma experience.

maryannisannoyed.bsky.social•19 days ago

My kids did not even blink at the Swamp of Sadness scene and were actually consoling me.

alldeaddave.bsky.social•19 days ago

They're made of strong stuff.

gwen-morgan.bsky.social•19 days ago

You should read the book. Very violent.

perm-pessimist.bsky.social•19 days ago

On my top 10 reading list. Loved the book.

cenobitekurt.bsky.social•19 days ago

It's such an emotional story and doesn't at all sugarcoat the lives of those poor rabbits. It's one of my dearest childhood movies. If you haven't read the book, it's also amazing!

realguyfawkes.bsky.social•19 days ago

Great book!

bogs-of-the-wood4.bsky.social•19 days ago

There's another one about a bear. Also brutal. Do not recommend.

firebirdsdaughter.bsky.social•19 days ago

Was it the BBC one or the trippy 70s one?

humanspareparts.bsky.social•19 days ago

i’ll give it a try then, right now

bestdogmom.bsky.social•19 days ago

Another reason why Felon 47 scares me so much. As an English teacher of 40 years I taught Watership Down, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, and so many other dystopian novels. Anything you find in fiction can so daily become reality.

phdeanucla.bsky.social•19 days ago

I STILL think it's about rabbits on a ship, and now I'm going to stay that way.

chrisroutledge.bsky.social•19 days ago

Oh that's an astonishing film. Made me the fucked up 56 year-old I am today.

7katz.bsky.social•19 days ago

Oh The Plague Dogs is horrific but Watership Down is true British teens book. Good stuff.

mimiwells.bsky.social•19 days ago

I read both of those as a teenager. Yikes on bikes.

daiun.bsky.social•19 days ago

Plague Dogs was over 40 years ago, but I understand, time flies.

annebillson.bsky.social•19 days ago

Maybe read my skeet again. It was 20 years ago when I first saw it.

daiun.bsky.social•19 days ago

Just assumed since you “trotted off” to see it that you saw it in a theater, which most likely and usually would be at release, and the release date was 1982.

robinince.bsky.social•19 days ago

It is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre of kids films

arocantplay.bsky.social•19 days ago

In Texas Chainsaw Massacre, no one dies on screen. In Watership Down, many do.

jonathanpinnock.com•19 days ago

See also The Animals of Farthing Wood. Absolute carnage.

fatscoleman.bsky.social•19 days ago

Baby mice impaled on thorns! An image seared into my young brain

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