The British Bambi? Either way, 1978's Watership Down, perennial traumatiser of the very young, remains the pre-eminent Seventies example of the tendency to broach tough, grown-up themes within a form more commonly appropriated for kids' stuff: not an ignoble ambition, by any means, but one that - as with 1954's Animal Farm before it, and 1986's When the Wind Blows after it - resulted in an often uncomfortable sit. It's not inappropriate that this latest reissue should coincide with the week of Hallowe'en, but children raised on the Kung Fu Panda and Minions movies really won't know what's hit 'em: there's but one song here - Art Garfunkel's "Bright Eyes" - which may as well be about mxyomatosis for all the merriment it generates. Ripped by writer-directors Martin Rosen and John Hubley from Richard Adams' bestseller, the movie's warped twist was to take as heroes a selection of ragtag, bobtailed bunny rabbits - an entire warren's worth of Thumpers - only to demonstrate the perpetual state of fear in which they exist, either for the purposes of political metaphor or to reconnect the animist spirit with jaded metropolitan spectators hellbent on turning the world entire into roadkill. You can still admire the scrappy Seventies sincerity, certainly: at times, it comes on like a tie-dye Ten Commandments, with John Hurt voicing a floppy-eared, twitchy-nosed Moses leading his charges to the promised land set out in the truly trippy prologue. Yet the casualties incurred en route by these creatures leave the whole looking more odd than welcoming nowadays. Watership Down could perhaps be claimed by the school that insists kids need pets to learn about the grieving process, but - with its lingering close-ups of blood dripping from whiskers - it's also indistinguishable from the average PETA scare tactic.
Watership Down returns to selected cinemas from Friday.
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