‘Death of a Unicorn’ is exactly what you want and expect from a killer unicorn movie

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — This isn’t your typical kind of roadkill.

Synopsis

In Death of a Unicorn, lawyer Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) are heading to a crisis management summit to meet with the wealthy Leopold family, where the patriarch Odell (Richard E. Grant) is on his deathbed. On the way to their estate in the wilderness, Elliot hits and kills a young unicorn with his car, which he then loads into the vehicle to prevent the authorities from finding it.

At the Leopolds’ mansion, they discover the unicorn’s blood has magical healing properties. It doesn’t take long for the Leopolds and Elliot to realize they can profit from this new medical discovery, which creates friction between them and the more kindhearted Ridley. Things get even more complicated when the dead unicorn’s parents come to get their baby back, with their horns sharp and ready to impale.

My thoughts

I really hate this new trend in filmmaking where they take some childhood icons that are known for being fun and magical and turn them into violent killers. You know what I’m talking about: those abhorrent movies like Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey which have kicked off other twisted “cinematic” interpretations of childhood classic characters like Mickey Mouse, The Grinch, Popeye, you name it.

It’s all just so lame and lazy to me. Like some edgy teenager saying, “Isn’t it hilarious when something that’s normally not violent suddenly is?!” Well, when you’re making below-the-bottom-of-the-barrel garbage to capitalize off an IP going into the public domain, then no, it’s not hilarious. It’s boring and bereft of any intelligence and creativity. I’m always willing to make an exception to this kind of idea, though, but it needs logic, earnestness, and craftsmanship to win me over.

To be honest, it’s really not fair to compare Death of a Unicorn to those types of movies because this is more of a real movie starring real actors and made by people with honest artistic intent. It’s just what it reminds me of because we’re not used to seeing unicorns going on violent murderous rampages where they impale, gore, disembowel and tear people apart any way they can.

Dark magic

Written and directed by Alex Scharfman, his feature film debut feels far more inspired by the sci-fi/fantasy creature features of the 80s and 90s made by the likes of Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Joe Dante, and other filmmakers of that ilk and era. You can feel the homages through and through, particularly to Spielberg with the sweeping camera movements and distant father-child relationship being the crux of the story.

It doesn’t come anywhere close to the movies made by those aforementioned filmmaking legends, but Scharfman’s mind was in the right place here. Even if the story and character elements don’t really all come together in the most emotionally satisfying way, it’s a lot of fun getting there thanks to the cast and their sharp dialogue. It’s also a lot of fun witnessing some unicorn carnage and you get plenty of it here.

As I mentioned above, I’m willing to make exceptions to the whole “cute and cuddly character turned violent” gimmick if it actually makes logical sense and has meaning. In the basic sense, the unicorns here are the unicorns you’re used to, being magical four-legged beasts with a spike coming out of their heads, but Scharfman draws from all sorts of different cultural mythologies to give them a more unique, threatening look.

Despite their magical powers, Scharfman presents unicorns as the wild beasts they would probably be in real life. It would make sense for them to have animal instincts like protecting their young and using the huge horns on their heads to attack the people they view as dangerous. Nature isn’t pretty and Scharfman shows that with a healthy number of gory kills. Like a bear or a moose, these are the last things you’d want to encounter in the woods.

You also get the social commentary bit with the Leopold family (who Scharfman said is based on the Sacklers) harvesting the unicorn’s blood and ground-up horn to sell as expensive medical treatments. It’s all very blunt and obvious, but let’s be real, that’s exactly how bluntly obvious people would be with exploiting unicorns if they existed. If rhinos have been hunted to near extinction for their horns to provide faux cures, why wouldn’t people do the same to unicorns?

Myths and mankind

Since the whole movie is basically characters talking and walking around this vast estate with the occasional unicorn attack, having an excellent cast goes a long way in keeping it all entertaining. We have a consummate ensemble with Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Richard E. Grant, Téa Leoni, Will Poulter, and Anthony Carrigan, with everyone getting their moments to shine, some more than others. Téa Leoni, for example, is great as always, but a bit underused.

Poulter was the star of the show for me, with impeccable timing and delivery, nearly every single one of his lines giving me some hearty belly laughs. It was also great to see Anthony Carrigan of Barry making an appearance that’s just as funny here as he is in anything else I’ve seen him in. He certainly makes the most of his limited screentime with his idiosyncratic speech and movements and it would have been welcome to feature more of him.

The rocky father-daughter relationship between Rudd and Ortega’s characters is supposed to be the heart and soul of the film and while it mostly works because they both work well together, their story takes too much of a backseat in the middle. Also like a Spielberg film, it gets really sappy at the end, which kind of puts it tonally at odds with the rest of the movie. The ending feels just a little bit too heartfelt and whimsical following the macabre silliness that’s come before it, but hey, that’s unicorns for you.

A little side note: how awesome would it have been if John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel Davies composed the score for this like they were originally going to? Giosuè Greco and Dan Romer do a decent job with the music here, complete with some Carpenter-inspired bumping synths, but an actual score from John Carpenter and his team would have only made this movie better. Eh, at least they’ll be scoring Bong Joon Ho’s next flick.

Final verdict

Death of a Unicorn isn’t anything that’s going to reinvent the wheel. It’s probably due to the budget, but there is a feeling that there could be more done with the idea. Still, it’s a fun throwback to old-school gory monster flicks with a great cast that knows exactly what kind of silly movie they’re making. Aside from a brief moment in classic The Cabin in the Woods, if you want a movie where a unicorn violently kills people, this is it. This is THE movie for that and it delivers.