'Death of a Unicorn' Points a Satirical Horn at the All-Consuming Greed of the Wealthy [Review]

Ever since that killer unicorn appeared in Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods, I have been begging the universe for a horror film centered around the mythical creature. Over a decade later, writer/director Alex Scharfman has finally delivered that with his feature debut, Death of a Unicorn. While the film is no stallion, suffering from a rather formulaic narrative struggling to get out of the box—in this case, mansion—that it traps itself in, this goofy horror comedy points a satirical horn at the exploitative nature of the wealthy, making for a cathartic take-down of America’s one percent…with a little warmhearted magic (and gore) sprinkled in for good measure.

Saddled with a knockout cast, we meet the estranged pair of Ridley (Jenna Ortega) and her father, Elliot (Paul Rudd), on their way to visit one of his clients deep in the mountains. A lawyer by trade, Elliot has been asked by mega-rich pharmaceutical CEO, Odell (Richard E. Grant), to bring his daughter along for a meeting so that he can get to know the single dad’s family (mom passed away from cancer not long ago). That includes meeting Odell’s own brood, his belittling wife, Belinda (Téa Leoni) and pompous son, Shepard (Will Poulter). As if that wasn’t unpleasant enough, Elliot hits an animal on their way to the house. Not just any animal, though. A baby unicorn. And in this world, unicorns aren’t the cute, cuddly creatures most fairy tales have made them out to be. They’re vicious, vengeful, and pissed as all hell over Odell’s plans to harvest their magical blood into an elixir of immortality (something I’m certain the ageless Paul Rudd has already discovered).

​Let’s be frank. The idea of a killer unicorn is absurd, and Scharfman is well aware of that. Death of a Unicorn takes every opportunity to play up the silliness with that knowledge in mind. So, we’re dropped into this lighthearted world befitting of the title beast, a sense of magic coursing through the air. The scenery is stunning. The score, whimsical. At times, it even--while not entirely successful at this--at least attempts to invoke a similar feeling to that scene from Jurassic Park where the characters arrive and see living dinosaurs for the first time. Pure, uncut awe. We’re talking about unicorns here, after all. What kid didn’t grow up enchanted by these fantastical beauties? Sure, there’s the occasional explosion of gore, but it’s all so over-the-top that it fits the giddy tone well. Despite the childish nature of it, it would be a stretch to call this gateway horror, but it makes for a solid first step for a budding fan of the genre as they pass through the gate.

Within all that bright-eyed wonder is a rather straight-forward satire piercing the veil of the “good billionaire” with a blood-soaked horn. Odell and his family paint themselves as a merry band of saints, giving to the poor and producing life-saving pharmaceuticals. Elliot naively believes that they see him as their equal and want to share the profits of the unicorn’s cure-all blood…much to the dismay of Ridley, played with relatable frustration by Ortega as she attempts to warn them all against the idea. It’s a playbook we’ve seen many times before, without much of anything new to say on the matter…but that doesn’t make it any less relevant. Scharfman kicks home the point of exploitative wealth with a hoof to the face, relishing in the evil antics of people much worse than the so-called “monsters” attacking them. To highlight the all-consuming greed of the rich, Odell’s family drinks the unicorn’s blood. Eat its flesh. Will Poulter does his Will Poulter thing while snorting the ground-up dust of its goddamn horn in short-shorts. These people are cartoon villains to the nth degree. It may be “dumb” or seem like “too much”, but as we’ve learned in our own reality, the cartoonish lengths that the wealthy will go to profit off the backs of everyone and everything knows no bounds. The difference in this film is that the brilliant cast play their characters up to a point where you love to hate them instead of just hating them, ensuring plenty of laughs and some delicious catharsis once the carnage begins.

If anything keeps Death of a Unicorn from breaking out of its stable, it’s the by the numbers narrative. For all the magic and wonder and 2001: Space Odyssey-esque visions that come from touching the unicorn’s horn, there aren’t a whole lot of surprises in Scharfman’s script. The filmmaker has free reign to let imagination run wild, yet the unicorn is surprisingly limited in what it can do. At its core, this is Romero’s zombies invading the old farmhouse set-up. The film gets into trouble once the chaos erupts and it becomes unsure of where to go with what amounts to an angry horse running through a house. Some may complain about the not so spectacular CG as well but take it from someone who grew up during the 90s…it could be so much worse. If anything, it’s disappointing that the effects aren’t better only because the design of the unicorn is so striking.

I won’t say that Death of a Unicorn is the killer unicorn movie of my wildest fantasies. But I can’t say it doesn’t deliver, either. It’s the less exciting version of the moment from The Lost World where the T-Rex baby is rescued by its parents, drawn out to feature length. It gets the heart of that childhood wonder over unicorns beating, colorful and strange and silly, with enough gruesome carnage to get a cheer or two out of horror fans. Like a pony ride at a farm, adult you may not be all that impressed, but the kid inside that always wondered what would happen if a unicorn went on a rampage is going to have a fun time.

Death of a Unicorn gallops into theaters March 28th from A24. 

By Matt Konopka