Both a satire with not quite enough bite and a creature feature without much of a proverbial bark, Death Of A Unicorn has promising aspects on paper but can’t translate them to movie magic. Alex Scharfman’s directorial debut is being marketed by A24 as an offbeat horror comedy, which isn’t totally misleading as much as it’s overpromising something that’s scarier or funnier than it actually is. Although there are some kills that could satisfy horror nuts and humor that could kill with the “eat the rich” demographic, the movie never fully commits to what it wants to be. To its credit, it puts forth better computer-generated effects than I would expect for a film with a $15 million budget, especially given that it also boasts a stacked cast too. It’s just too bad that all these people and unicorns weren’t brought together for something more impactful.
Death Of A Unicorn finds pharmaceutical lawyer Elliot (Paul Rudd) and his teenage daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) en route to a business retreat when they accidentally hit what turns out to be a unicorn with their car. Unsure how to handle the situation, Elliot stashes the mythical creature in the car and doesn’t mention it to their hosts when they arrive at their estate. Elliot’s cancer-stricken boss Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) is considering moving him up to a VP position but wants the second opinion of his wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) and their son Shepard (Will Poulter) first. The still-alive unicorn makes a calamitous escape from the automobile and the group accidentally discovers the healing properties from the creature’s blood. The revelation puts Elliot at odds with the Leopolds’ desire to turn the magic substance for profit and Ridley’s conviction to restoring nature’s balance by returning the unicorn to its family.
Paul Rudd is an immensely amiable screen presence and has been an enduring talent for decades now but Death Of A Unicorn doesn’t make good use of either his comedic or dramatic sensibilities. He’s allegedly playing the movie’s protagonist but we can tell from the way he handles the initial car accident with the unicorn that he’s hardly the paragon of nobility. Elliot has a strained relationship with Ridley and he has numerous opportunities to do right by her that he eschews for career ambition. Not every lead character has to be likable in every sense but Rudd can’t make Elliot’s cowardly impulses come across as character flaws that we want to see him overcome; he simply comes across as a jerk who should get what’s coming to him.
With themes of parent-teenager strife and science meddling with nature, Death Of A Unicorn seems to take cues from Spielberg fables like War Of The Worlds and Jurassic Park. While it obviously doesn’t have the budget of effects-heavy projects like that, Scharfman’s script also isn’t as sharp as it needs to be from a character perspective to make up for the deficit. Fortunately, the actors playing the Leopolds — Will Poulter and Téa Leoni, in particular — make the most out of satirizing the greedy corporatists who are blinded to the obvious by the dollar signs in their eyes. They’re playing similar types to ones Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette took on for Mickey 17 recently but Poulter and Leoni wisely don’t go as over-the-top in their portrayals. Even when Shepard grinds a portion of a unicorn horn into powder that he proceeds to snort, Poulter finds some real laughs in the sheer enormity of his character’s arrogance.
The film’s trajectory is clearly leading to a showdown between the mansion-dwellers and the unicorn family angered by the capture of one of their own. The take-no-prisoners attitude of the unicorn clan is meant to fly in the face of the majestic image we tend to associate with the mythical creature, but it’s a one-note joke that’s not particularly bright in the first place. The rendering of the CGI is admittedly punching above its weight class and the kills at the hands — horns and hooves may be more fitting — of the unicorns generate some fun gore-soaked scenes; one character’s undoing atop a billiard table is perhaps the most inspired. Death Of A Unicorn just isn’t able to find a way to weave its tapestry of conflicting genres and tones together into one enchanting concoction.
Score – 2.5/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is A Minecraft Movie, a fantasy adventure starring Jason Momoa and Jack Black, following four misfits who are pulled through a portal into a cubic world that thrives on imagination, having no choice but to master the world while embarking on a quest.
Also coming to theaters is Hell Of A Summer, a horror comedy starring Fred Hechinger and Abby Quinn, about a masked killer who begins picking off a group of camp counselors the night before their campers are set to arrive for the summer.
Premiering on Shudder is 825 Forest Road, a supernatural horror movie starring Joe Falcone and Elizabeth Vermilyea, involving a man who hopes to start a new life with his wife and sister after a family tragedy, but discovers the town he has moved to has a dark secret.