Death of a Unicorn is one of those films with a fun premise but no certainty on which tone to adopt. It’s an interesting, occasionally amusing, play on the creature feature genre, with some scathing views on the class gap to boot. Yet it never feels especially confident as a comedic horror the way that movies like Critters or even this year’s The Monkey were. It’s less of a creepy satire and more of a damp squib.
Elliot Kitner (Paul Rudd) is a struggling lawyer and single father to his teenage daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega). The death of his wife, Ridley’s mother, has caused a rift between the two, which Elliot hopes to repair by bringing Ridley along for a getaway weekend with Elliot’s boss, Odell Leopold (Richard E Grant). A wealthy CEO with a terminal cancer diagnosis, Elliot hopes this getaway – in which Leopold’s wife and son (Tea Leoni and Will Poulter respectively) are also present – will set him up with a deal that’ll keep and him and Ridley financially stable
But on the way to Leopold’s home, situated in the middle of a protected wildlife park, Elliot accidentally hits an animal with his car. To his and Ridley’s surprise, the animal ends up being a unicorn, which they load into their car and take with them for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Upon the Leopolds’ discovering the unicorn body, its mystical features prove to be ripe for capitalist exploitation, much to Odell’s excitement and Ridley’s apprehension. That is until more unicorns, who Ridley discovers after some research are deadly, vengeful creatures, show up to take the body of their young back, resulting in a night of terror as Elliot, Ridley and the Leopolds try to evade their wrath.
Unicorns are fictional creatures typically seen as gentle, majestic beings associated with purity of heart. Comedic takes that reveal these assumptions to be a farce are not unheard of – see the excellent Gravity Falls episode The Last Mabelcorn – but writer-director Alex Scharfman is able to use this subversion to up the bizarreness of what’s on screen. Many creature features from George Waggner’s The Wolf Man to Steven Spielberg’s Jaws rely on a palpable sense of dread to build tension, sometimes not even revealing the creature until the last possible moment. Death of a Unicorn adopts those same techniques, including obscuring the more bloodthirsty unicorns through close-ups and tight framing for much of their rampage, while also playing up the irony that these unicorns can be as wondrous as they are deadly. The CGI surrounding the unicorns is not always convincing, but there’s a clear appreciation for the horror genre here that feeds into the film’s ironic portrayal of otherwise graceful animals.
In fact, it’s the more mystical properties of unicorns that are at the centre of the film’s satirical properties. When the Leopolds discover that the dead unicorn Elliot hit can be used for healthcare purposes, they immediately get to work at trying to exploit it for their own gain. Elliot initially goes along with it, seeing this as a shortcut to the financial security he desires for himself and his daughter. But Ridley, portrayed as a young bleeding heart liberal and thus the one sensible person in the picture, sees right through the avarice of their desires. She sees the potential exploitation that emerges from this, and the filmmaking follows suit by giving the Leopolds exaggeratedly tongue-in-cheek dialogue and servants who they treat horribly, all of which shows how callous they are. The mise-en-scene, with its abundance of wealthy props, and the blatantly egocentric dialogue the Leopolds spout indicate that they would never share their potential breakthroughs with the working class masses. This makes the picture a damning critique on the capitalist distribution of healthcare, and how, in America anyway, it is often hoarded by the ultra wealthy. The best line of dialogue comes from Ridley regarding this. Upon being asked by Elliot what unicorn blood could have meant for her mother had she been alive, Ridley coldly retorts that the wealthy elites like the Leopolds “wouldn’t let her anywhere near it”.
These are compelling topics of exploration, with clear stances that this critic happens to agree with, but its inclusion in this film, an otherwise rote monster movie, feels awkward. Too much of the film is taken up by this discovery and the scientific experiments that go into proving the Leopolds’ hypothesis, almost derailing the pacing. Horror films are often unfairly dismissed as just a vehicle for macabre fantasies, but there were times where I was wondering when the unicorns were going to start killing people. Even when they do show up to unleash their horn-based fury, the film insists on inserting as much comedy into the situation as possible, the humour coming not from the bizarreness of a unicorn going berserk but from the quips and wimpy actions of the characters. You can bet that the innuendo “give me the horn” appears as a line of dialogue, and I’ll give you one guess what that results in.
Consequently many of the performances are affected, which seem caught between the two different tones of comedy and horror. The cast list is mightily impressive, and there are moments of genuine sentimentality between Rudd and Ortega whenever their characters get vulnerable with each other. But the constant need to highlight the irony of the characters’ predicament drains the picture of suspense and forces the actors into a position where they’re constantly playing up the silliness. Poulter’s character, Shepard Leopold, suffers a lot here as his antagonistic role becomes increasingly harder to take seriously the more his desperation and greed is saturated by unfunny gags and overt demonstrations of lameness over gross entitlement, such as his capitalist fascination with the unicorns being reduced to a drug addiction joke. Poulter is confident enough as an actor that the performance doesn’t become too grating but in another’s hands his role would have been insufferable, largely thanks to the obnoxious dialogue he’s constantly reciting. It’s a film that tries to play it both ways in terms of comedy and horror but ends up doing neither particularly well.
There will probably be plenty to enjoy for the right audience member, as the film certainly has some admirable qualities going for it. Sadly it’s too haphazardly assembled to do much of anything for this critic. Death of a Unicorn is fun in places but it’s far too tongue-in-cheek for its own good. That the film is essentially about unicorns eating the rich is thoroughly appreciated, but not enough to save it from its tonal confusion and its general lack of individuality beyond the ironic central gimmick.
Death of a Unicorn is in cinemas from April 4th
Rating: 
Director: Alex Scharfman
Writer: Alex Scharfman
Stars: Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Richard E Grant, Will Poulter, Tea Leoni
Runtime: 107 minutes
Country: USA
