Before you press play
Watch if
You like horror comedies about awful rich families, and you can forgive uneven effects in a film made for far less than a blockbuster.
Wait if
You want big laughs, or you are squeamish. Some scenes get very gory.
Death of a Unicorn gets to its strange premise early. A father and daughter hit a unicorn on the way to a weekend with his billionaire boss's family, and the visit turns uncomfortable and then very bloody. The film is a good watch, mostly because of two performances.
The setup reminded me of Get Out. Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) arrives at the Leopold family's estate hoping the weekend will help his career, while his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) has no interest in impressing anyone. The unfamiliar house and the pressure to stay polite give you the same feeling: these are people you should probably get away from.
Shepard Leopold (Will Poulter), the family's son, is the standout, and Paul Rudd does more of the work than his quiet role suggests.
What Death of a Unicorn is about
Death of a Unicorn is about a rich family that finds a cure and asks what it can charge for it. Elliot is a widowed lawyer working for Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), the dying head of that family. After the accident, Elliot puts the unicorn's body in the car and asks Ridley to act as if everything is fine. Once the Leopolds learn what the horn can do, the talk in the house turns to what it is worth.
Writer and director Alex Scharfman puts the accident early, so the unicorn turns up quickly. After that, the first half takes its time, introducing the family and building the situation slowly.
Comedy and awkwardness
The humour is mostly awkwardness. It might not even make you chuckle, but it shows how uncomfortable this weekend is, starting with Elliot, who is trying far too hard.
Early on, while you are still meeting the family and the story is building, that light touch helps keep the slower scenes easy to sit through.
Once the unicorns start chasing people, the pace picks up sharply and the awkward humour gives way to more immediate danger.
Will Poulter as Shepard Leopold
Shepard starts out as a useless rich kid who thinks he is cleverer than everyone around him and keeps pitching ways to make money. Will Poulter plays that confidence completely straight, and Shepard does not seem to hear how foolish he sounds.
As the weekend goes on, the role darkens, and Will Poulter is just as convincing once Shepard stops being a joke.
Paul Rudd as Elliot Kintner
Paul Rudd gets a lot out of Elliot's attempts to fit into the Leopolds' conversations. Elliot's interest in the career opportunity and the money is clear, while his discomfort comes through in small physical reactions.
Much of the early comedy comes from those reactions. On the plane, a shrug of his shoulder bumps Ridley's head. Later, the dying Odell asks Elliot to come and sit beside him when there is nowhere to sit, and Elliot struggles to perch there anyway.
In the first half you have to pay attention while things build, and Paul Rudd keeps those slow stretches watchable; later, things move too fast to focus on much. Elliot's relationship with his daughter gives the film its strongest character arc.
Jenna Ortega and Téa Leoni
Ridley gives the film a steady point of view, and her discomfort with the people around her is easy to understand. Jenna Ortega is good in the part. Belinda Leopold (Téa Leoni) has a smaller, supporting role, but Téa Leoni makes her enjoyable to watch.
The unicorns and their rules
Learning what the unicorns can do a little at a time works for me. Explained all at once at the start, it would be too much to take in, and the gradual version gives each discovery room to register.
The weak spot is how some of those pieces arrive.
Ridley has a personal reason to dig into the legend, but her online research turns up the next piece too neatly. Going from finding the information to understanding the danger feels convenient.
How gory is Death of a Unicorn?
Very, in places. Some scenes are extensively gory, so if you are squeamish, know that going in.
The creature effects are uneven. Some of the CGI is not great, and in a few places it is plainly bad. For a film of this size I could live with it. A Marvel blockbuster or an Avatar film works on a different budget, and it is fair to adjust what you expect.
Is Death of a Unicorn worth watching?
Yes. It works as a strange horror comedy about greed and family, and I enjoyed it, mostly for Will Poulter and Paul Rudd.
The convenient research and occasionally poor CGI are reservations, but neither spoiled the experience for me.
Three out of five: Glowing.
Odell and the cure. The obvious reading is about a cure becoming a product. Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) is dying of cancer, and the unicorn's horn cures him. Being saved only makes him want to control the supply. When the unicorn parents come for their foal, Odell is among the dead.
Shepard turns into his father. Shepard Leopold (Will Poulter) ends the weekend looking a lot like Odell. When a unicorn attacks his mother, Belinda Leopold (Téa Leoni), he makes no move to kill it and gets away. To me, that was the moment the creature became worth more to him than she was. After snorting the powdered horn, he holds Ridley Kintner (Jenna Ortega) at arrow-point, sure the unicorns will be docile around a pure-hearted maiden.
The Unicorn Tapestries. Ridley has personal reasons to believe the unicorn matters: she touches its horn at the roadside and has a vision, and she remembers seeing the Unicorn Tapestries with her mother. The tapestries are real, made around 1495 to 1505, and hang at The Met Cloisters in New York. One of them is incomplete, and the expanded version shown in the film, kills included, was created for it. Alex Scharfman has said Ridley wears red and Elliot wears blue throughout, colours meant to come together as purple.
Elliot and Ridley. The change in Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) is the most satisfying part of the story for me. All weekend he insists the career and the money are for Ridley, and near the end he admits they may have been for him after all. By then he is willing to put her ahead of the approval he came for.
Elliot's death and return. The Leopolds tried to own the unicorns' power to heal, and Elliot receives it without asking for anything. While Shepard is tying the unicorns' legs, Elliot stabs him with the unicorn's horn, and Shepard stabs him back with an arrow. Elliot dies with Ridley beside him, and seeing her grief, the unicorns bring him back to life along with their foal. One way to read it: the unicorn parents killed over harm done to their child, and they bring back the father who finally put his own child first.
The police car at the end. The last scene swaps the impossible for something very ordinary: the police. Officers arrive to a house full of bodies and two survivors in bloodstained clothes, and they arrest Elliot and Ridley. On the drive away, the unicorns run the police car off a lakeside road. Alex Scharfman has said the unicorns are trying to help, without understanding cars or police.
Bright Bulbs
- Shepard Leopold (Will Poulter) keeps up a stream of crude remarks, and his hot tub scene with Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) is very funny.
- Elliot tells himself his career and his money are for Ridley Kintner (Jenna Ortega), and Paul Rudd lets you see how much he wants them for himself.
- The creature design makes the unicorns look like a real threat, which carries the attacks even where the CGI around them is weak.
Dull Bulbs
- Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) is fine as the dying boss Elliot came to impress, but his wife and son are the Leopolds I remember.
- Ridley sees through the Leopolds from the start, so Jenna Ortega has one position to hold and little room to change.
Cast
- Paul Rudd as Elliot Kintner
- Jenna Ortega as Ridley Kintner
- Will Poulter as Shepard Leopold
- Téa Leoni as Belinda Leopold
- Richard E. Grant as Odell Leopold
- Anthony Carrigan as Griff
- Jessica Hynes as Shaw
- Sunita Mani as Dr. Bhatia
- Stephen Park as Dr. Song