Film once described as ‘one-way ticket to post-traumatic stress disorder’ originally classified U

• Watership Down has been upgraded to a PG. It’ll still terrify children

When Watership Down was first released in 1978, the film’s director Martin Rosen insisted the image featured on its promotional poster should warn viewers that this was no cutesy cartoon about some bunnies.

“I reckoned a mother with a sensitive child would see a rabbit in a snare with blood coming out its mouth and reckon, ‘Well maybe this isn’t for Charlie – it’s a little too tough,’” he has said.