While Watership Down may be the more accessible feature between the two, The Plague Dogs, director Martin Rosen’s follow-up and again based on a Richard Adams novel, remains the deeper, more urgent film. Thus so, it was brutally cut on its American release after a poor showing internationally, and has ended up an amazingly hard film to see in its uncut form – until now!

Unlike any other animated film yet released, even to this day, The Plague Dogs takes a tough subject and turns it into an extraordinary experience. And watching The Plague Dogs IS an experience. Perhaps it’s closest to Bambi in its stark portrayal of realism, but there are no funny bunnies here to take away the sting, nor even the occasional playfulness or excitement to be found in Rosen’s own Watership Down. The Plague Dogs is a bleak film, full of the realities of life, and that the protagonists are dogs draws on man’s affinity to them in making one feel even more for their plight. Likewise the muted colors, full of the melancholy mood of rural England, strike a harshness that doesn’t set out to make the countryside cosy and inviting.

~via DVDtoons

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