'The Black Cauldron', Disney's Red-Headed Stepchild.

Are you a fan of Disney's animated films? If so, do you remember The Black Cauldron?

Don't trouble yourself too much over it, if you don't. Disney itself has done little to promote it in the years since it's 1985 release – and, in fact, would seem to be just as happy if it were forgotten entirely. You are not likely to find any reference to The Black Cauldron at Disneyland, for example. And, the character of Princess Eilonwy is unlikely to ever be included in the list of Disney's famous Princesses.

It was expensive to make, using new animation techniques and being one of the first animated films to use computer generated imagery, and failed to perform at the box office – an overall disappointment to a company that had grown accustomed to resounding success. It received mixed reviews, at the time, with some expressing their disappointment with its drastic departure from the standard Disney format – though, other praises it for its visual imagery and presentation. It was a much darker film than anything that Disney had released up until that point, for a start, and was in fact their first animated film to receive a PG rating in America. It was also, perhaps most shockingly of all to any fan of Disney animation, completely free of singing – there was not a single irritatingly catchy song for viewer's to get stuck in their heads in the whole film.

Despite this, though, or maybe even because of it, The Black Cauldron remains my own personal favourite when it comes to Disney's animated features.

Based on a series of fantasy novels called The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander, the film is a loose reinterpretation of the first two of the series – being more of a mash-up of the two separate stories, rather than a straight adaptation of either.

It tells the tale of Taran, assistant pig-keeper with dreams of one day becoming a great warrior, who finds himself as the protector of Hen Wen, a pig with oracular powers, who he must hide from the Horned King, who intends to use Hen Wen's abilities to locate the titular Black Cauldron. With the Black Cauldron, the Horned King will be able to raise an unstoppable undead army, the Cauldron Born, which he will be able to use to conquer the world. Along the way, Taran encounters Gurgi, a strange little creature with a penchant for rampant cowardice, the Princess Eilonwy and a wandering minstrel, Fflewddur Fflam. Together, the group resolve to keep the location of the Black Cauldron from the Horned King and, if possible, seek it out and destroy it themselves... with mixed results.

The film is likely to come as something of a shock to anyone familiar with the traditional style of Disney's animated features, which is perhaps another contributing factor to Disney's long-running desire to distance themselves from it. Despite this, though, it has achieved something of a cult following of its own over the years - with some choosing to remember it as 'that time Disney tried something a little different'. Disney itself also seems to have relented somewhat with recent DVD releases of the film, included the 25^th Anniversary Special Edition available below.