Death of a Unicorn starring Jenna Ortega is as basic as creature features get
Death of a Unicorn might have been better if it were made for much less – let’s say, somewhere between a million dollars and the spare change found at the back of the sofa. The extra fanfare feels unnecessary: the cast led by Jenna Ortega, Paul Rudd, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, and Richard E Grant; the aspirational modern interiors masked by bare minimum “eat the rich” sentiment; the fact it’s distributed by A24 and produced by a company co-founded by Midsommar’s Ari Aster; the herd of CGI-rendered unicorns engaged in an impalement rampage.
In terms of substance, this is really about as basic as creature features get. It might have benefited from embracing some of the (intentional or unintentional) camp of real-deal, low-budget horror – the kind birthed on scuzzy VHS tapes, with their robotic performances, vats of corn syrup, and puppets that look like they’ve been through the wash a few times. There’s a mixture of practical and digital effects here, yet debuting writer-director Alex Scharfman leans too enthusiastically into Jurassic Park homage. It’s hardly sincere enough to be Spielberg, so instead just ends up a little dry.
The problem is already there, in the bones of its script: Ortega and Rudd, as Ridley and Elliot, are a rigidly straight-faced, father-daughter duo whose already icy relationship has only worsened after the death of the family’s matriarch. He buried himself in work, serving as a compliance lawyer for a pharmaceutical company run by Grant’s Odell Leopold. And he’s now dragged poor Ridley along to the dying CEO’s wilderness retreat under the illusion he’s about to be promoted to the executive board.
Only – smack – he hits a unicorn with his car on the drive up. And what happens when the 1 per cent find out that unicorn blood possesses magical healing properties? They lock into exploitation mode. Bloody, equine vengeance ensues. Odell and his wife Belinda (Leoni) cover the basic territory of the nefarious elite: greed, vanity, callousness towards the staff (Jessica Hynes and Anthony Carrigan), white silk blouses. Yet, there’s none of that demented glee of a good caricature, nothing like how Parker Posey has been pronouncing the word “Buddhism” over on The White Lotus.
Save, crucially, for Poulter as their son Shepard. He’s the engine that keeps Death of a Unicorn running through its predictable plot, turning up in the very first scene in a double-breasted robe, and delivering every line with an exquisite combination of flat-out aggression and Ted Talk speaker-style energisation. Every use of the word “hot tub” as a verb sounds more foul than the last, while there’s just enough boyish piteousness to him that it’s truly a delight to watch him suffer.
Because that is, ultimately, all that Death of a Unicorn can really offer its audience – an imaginary, schadenfreude slaughterhouse for the very worst in society, even if the method of torture has arrived in the form of a rather silly, “horror-ified” take on a legendary creature, with extra talons, sharp teeth, and what Belinda describes as a “rather girthsome” horn. If only the film could have had some more fun with that.
Dir: Alex Scharfman. Starring: Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, Richard E Grant. Cert 15, 107 minutes
‘Death of a Unicorn’ is in cinemas from 4 April
