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DIRECTED BY: Nick Johnson

FEATURING: The voices of Diana Kaarina, Kathleen Barr, Laara Sadiq, Brian Drummond, Tabitha St. Germain

PLOT: After a car crash, teenager Frankie searches the desert for his father, who has been abducted by the Cactus King.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: An unlikely candidate, Sunburnt Unicorn is, objectively, a children’s adventure ‘toon with broad humor and a simple structure. However, it is also objectively a movie about a kid wandering the desert with a glass shard sticking out from his forehead being guided by a tortoise whose rear half has been crushed by a car.

COMMENTS: Every festival, I make it a point to see as many cartoons as scheduling allows. This is not just because I enjoy bright colors and moving objects (that said, I do much enjoy bright colors and moving objects), but also because I’m on the hunt for weird movies with a broader age appeal than, say, El Topo, Tetsuo: the Iron Man, or The Devils. So it is with a missionary’s—or pusher’s—”get ’em while they’re young” zeal that I seek out kid-friendly weirdo cinema. Nick Johnson’s Sunburnt Unicorn is just such a film, appealing to, judging from the audience, middle-schoolers and middle-aged reviewers alike.

First, the wholesome part. Frankie is on a road trip with his dad, who has insisted the pair of them visit the engineering college that the patriarch (and patriarch’s patriarch) graduated from—no doubt with honors. Frankie, aged somewhere in his early teens, wants nothing to do with this serious, analytical nonsense, and instead wants to pursue a career in writing. The two argue under the withering glow of the hot sun and the uninterested gaze of a insect-seeking lizard. Brakes peal, then smashcrackbang, and so begins Frankie’s exposure to the outdoors, where he undergoes challenges, earns opportunities for growth, and shares humorous banter with various animals, in particular a helpful tortoise who witnesses the car crash.

Now, the weird part. This tortoise witnessed the accident because it risked crossing the desert road, and paid for it by losing the back half of its body. From the moment we meet it, Tortoise moves, observes, and pontificates with good-natured wisdom; all the while, its jelly-pink organs dangle from its behind. During stretches of travel and talk you forget this strange state of affairs, only to be smirkfully reminded by a change of the camera angle. The reason this tortoise, and many other animals—including a trio of, heh heh, self-sacrificing desert fox cubs—aid Frankie is that every animal-jack of them believes him to be a unicorn. If memory serves, the first time we see the boy is after the crash, and a glorious, jagged shard of cracked windscreen thrusts nobly from his forehead throughout. It has its effects, and even a super power. Though it pains him greatly, he can flick it to emit a resonant and useful twing.

And so, sitting there in a cinema, having nabbed this strange beast, I was swept away by the easy flow, quality lessons, and omnipresent grisliness whenever it caught my attention that Sunburnt Unicorn tells the story of two critically injured creatures. This is by no means the weirdest thing under the sun, and there are “family friendlier” films out there, but I am delighted to have experienced Johnson’s fun little ‘toon; it hits a cozy point where conflicting genres intersect.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Gently shaken by this immediate tone and dark storytelling, the audience braces itself for whatever’s next because Sunburnt Unicorn isn’t shying away from the realities of the scenario, even if it’s about to go in a more surreal direction… It was jarring to see an animated film that looked suitable for children in both color temperature and light become so morbidly bleak that quickly.”–Sean Park, 25 Years Later (festival screening)