When their flight is abruptly cancelled, Widowed lawyer Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his estranged daughter, Ridley (Jenna Ortega), are forced to drive to his ailing bossâ mansion home, located in a remote mountain forest. On the way, he strikes an animal with the car, which turns out to be a young unicornâŠand still alive.
Hoping to end its misery, Elliot repeatedly bashes the beast with a tire iron, splattering both he and Ridley with blood. Then they proceed to the house (which is more like a compound) with the dead unicorn in the back. Once there, Ridley is introduced to the LeopoldsâŠpatriarch Odell (Richard E. Grant), the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, his wife Belinda (TĂ©a Leoni) and their shiftless son, Shepard (Will Poulter). Superficially congenial, theyâre pretty horrible peopleâŠself-absorbed, condescending and arrogant. Still, Elliot blatantly sucks up to them for a promotion in the company.
However, the unicorn isnât quite dead. Once they discover that its blood has inexplicable healing properties, the Leopolds pounce on the opportunity to exploit the animalâs medicinal value, bringing in a team of scientists to harvest everything they can. During the process, Odell is cured of his cancer and demands the unicorn remains to be transferred to a lab. But Ridley, whoâs developed something of a connection to it after touching its horn, questions their motives. Not only that, after doing some research on unicorn legend, she insists they canât take the animal away. Everyone, including Elliot, simply thinks sheâs delusional.
She isnât, of course. The unicornâs monstrous parents descend from the hills and commence attacking the mansion, violently slaughtering many of the Leopoldsâ employees. Undeterred, Odell now wants to hunt down the adult unicorns to serve his own agenda. In a way, the basic plot of Death of a Unicorn shares similarities with a few movies in the Alien franchise, maybe a little Jurassic Park thrown in.
Tonally and thematically, however, writer-director Alex Scharfman could have gone in a few distinctly different directions with this premise, such as an artistic dark fantasy, a satirical black comedy, fractured family drama, or simply a balls-out horror film. Instead, he throws all of these elements into a pot and stirs. The result is a movie that ends up being kind of a mixed bag.
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| "I don't think gophers are your problem, Shep." |
The satiric bits are entertaining at times, mostly personified by the Leopoldsâ greed and indifference to the welfare of others. However, since theyâre more like caricatures, a little of this goes a long way. Grant, Leoni and Poulter deliver good performances (especially the latter), but there reaches a point where the viewer might wish theyâd just shut the hell up. Theyâre bad peopleâŠwe get it. As for Elliot and Ridley, weâve seen them before in plenty of other movies, so the direction their relationship takes throughout the film is predictable. Still, the denouement is kind of touching.
Considering A24 Filmsâ somewhat âartyâ reputation (even in horror), Death of a Unicorn is something of an oddity. From technical and narrative standpoints, this might be the most high-concept, mainstream and - dare I say? - generic movie the studio has ever released. Not that itâs a bad film. Thereâs some nasty fun to be had here and a few big laughs, but it ultimately tries to do too many things at once. Scharfman might have been better off picking one road and staying on it.
EXTRA KIBBLES
FEATURETTE - How to Kill a Unicorn features interviews with writer-director Alex Scharfman and some of the cast.
AUDIO COMMENTARY - By writer-director Alex Scharfman.
6 POSTCARDS - With behind-the-scenes photos.
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