Watership Down should be about death and destruction, not fluffy rabbits | Stephanie Merritt

I loved the 1978 film as a child, even though it terrified me. The remake should have kept the wild darkness, not toned it down

We don’t like to think about death too much at Christmas these days, especially when it comes to children’s stories. This is a shame, because dwelling on the proximity of darkness has been a significant part of our collective storytelling tradition at this time of year, since long before the Green Knight crashed King Arthur’s Christmas feast.

The Christmas ghost story used to be a family occasion; Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black both begin with the telling of fearful tales around the fire on Christmas Eve, a reminder that as we gather with loved ones around the warmth and lights of the hearth, the dark and the wild are still outside the windows, remnants of our pagan past – frightening and far from cosy.

Related: Watership Down: 'true meaning' revealed ahead of remake

Related: Watership Down: the film that frightened me the most

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2La0TDp