‘Death Of A Unicorn’: A Shockingly Inert Genre Cocktail

A great cast and some moderately interesting ideas ultimately can’t save Alex Scharfman’s Death of a Unicorn, a mostly unenjoyable mix of horror, comedy and unsubtle class commentary. Though the presence of a legendary horned equestrian gives it a unique slant, the film remains rather derivative as it fails to embrace the kind of multi-genre synthesis that would’ve been required to make it work.

It starts with some promise, as Ridley (Jenna Ortega) and her father Elliot (Paul Rudd) make their way towards his boss’s house for the weekend when they kill a unicorn on the way (shocking!) but soon discover its radical healing properties. Naturally, Elliot’s sickly boss Odell (Richard E. Grant) wants the power for himself, but nature doesn’t take kindly to the natural order being upset.

A shallow anti-capitalist critique

Death of a Unicorn teases at many ideas – some interesting, some not. After the success of films like Parasite and Knives Out, there’s been a huge wave of very poppy ‘eat the rich’ movies that hold anticapitalist sentiments but rarely choose to make a bold statement with that theme. Here, it manifests with the subtlety of a sledgehammer as the dead unicorn becomes a metaphor for the nightmarish American medical system and the exploitation of nature by the upper classes.

The issue with this is that Death of a Unicorn doesn’t allow these themes to breathe, as it attempts to mix laughs, scares and family drama into its narrative as well. The anticapitalist themes gradually shift away from being the main focus as the movie goes on, trying its best to be a horror-comedy with things to say. Yet by trying to be about everything, the film eschews the strong sense of focus generally required of a film criticising capitalism, while embracing oddly regressive mediaeval morality in its final act.

Additionally, the horror in the film falls flat because there’s never a point where the unicorns taking their vengeance feels outright scary. Death of a Unicorn faithfully plays the beats you’d expect of a horror movie, but they fall extremely flat. You don’t really care much what happens to the mostly unsympathetic human cast, and the kills aren’t creative enough to satisfy any horror sickos watching given the heavy reliance on CGI.

The cast of Death of a Unicorn try their best

If there’s one saving grace in Death of a Unicorn, it’s that the great cast are doing the best with what little the script offers them. Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega imbue far more humanity into the relationship between Elliot and Ridley than you might expect, while Richard E. Grant and Téa Leoni are occasionally fun as a simply awful rich couple.

The best performance in the movie, though, is undoubtedly Will Poulter as Odell’s rich son Shepard. I would say this character is intended to be the greatest source of comedy in Death of a Unicorn, and Poulter’s commitment to this role is honestly far funnier than anything written to be a joke. One of our most wickedly talented and often funniest young actors, he is the clear bright spot in this film and managed to squeeze a number of laughs out of me in spite of the poor dialogue.

Alas, the occasional bright spot doesn’t make Death of a Unicorn any easier to endure. It’s an inert effort that seems to take cues from enjoyable modern thrillers like The Menu, Knives Out and even Get Out, but is unable to find any meaning in its dissection of either class or a murdered unicorn. At least it’s appropriate to have ‘death’ in the title, given the film never even comes to life in the first place.

★½

Death of a Unicorn is in cinemas now.