Death of a Unicorn is a horror comedy with a unique premise, but it allows itself to unravel in unsatisfying ways. If anything, it doesn’t really have enough faith in its story and ends up squandering its potential.
Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega star as Elliot and Ridley Kintner, a father-daughter duo who are on their way to the home of Elliot’s boss. On the way, they hit a unicorn. They decide to take the unicorn with them and discover it has magical powers, such as clearing Ridley’s acne.
Richard E. Grant, Tea Leoni, and Will Poulter play the family of aristocrats who find the unicorn and decide it can cure Grant’s cancer, which it does. As a result, Grant has his doctors do some further experiments and milk the unicorn for all its worth.
It isn’t long before these characters find out there are other unicorns out in the wilderness who want to hunt them down and extract their retribution on the humans. Admittedly, the other unicorns do get some degree of carnage, but it shows a surprising amount of restraint for an R rating, except for a few scenes, which are a welcome distraction from all the exposition that occurs in between.
The movie tries some satire on pharmaceuticals and capitalism, but whatever point it wants to make is not delivered interestingly. It’s made pretty clear that the magic is being used for exploitation, but it’s a little too on the nose instead of choosing its delivery in a more subtle fashion.
It has clear elements of Jurassic Park and Frankenstein, such as tampering with nature’s gifts and not considering the consequences. Rather than wanting to go down a more daring road, Death of a Unicorn is content with cliché and a muddled story with little suspense or intrigue.
Rudd and Ortega do good work in individual scenes but don’t get a chance to flex their comedic muscles. There’s probably only one laugh in the entire film, which comes at the climax.
This movie lacks an intriguing script and is repetitive with its supposed scares. Unicorns are magical, but this movie is not.
Grade: C-
(Rated R for strong violent content, gore, language and some drug use.)
