Death of a Unicorn is a 2025 A24 horror-comedy release. Directed by Alex Scharfman, and starring Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Tea Leoni, and Richard E. Grant. I say horror-comedy, but it was kind of a fantasy/horror-comedy considering the fact that the main storyline of the film revolved around unicorns. That’s honestly what really pulled me into this film initially, there surprisingly hasn’t been a lot of big budget movies made about unicorns, let alone horrorish films about unicorns, and I knew it wasn’t going to be cheesy/low budget nonsense considering it was made by A24 and starred Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega. Did it live up to my initial excitement and intrigue though? I’d say yes, but it really depends what you’re going into the film looking for. There was definitely some comedic moments, but it didn’t have me cracking up consistently throughout the runtime, so if you’re a Paul Rudd fan that loves his silly comedies, I wouldn’t necessarily say this is that. Paul Rudd still does his Paul Rudd thing though, as does Jenna Ortega do her thing.
Will Poulter was kind of the show stealer within the cast to me though in a lot of ways. He played that sort of dumb, dysfunctional, alcohol and drug addicted nepo baby and he played it pretty well. He had the most lines and moments throughout the movie that made me legit laugh. The unicorns delivered a lot of the horror obviously and I thought they were the overall show stealer, as they should have been given what the movie was. This movie delved into a dark mythology surrounding the unicorns that dated back to the Middle Ages and told of a bloodthirsty and vengeful beast that ran rampant until they could find someone with the ability to tame them. The unicorns looked rather cool and vicious when they needed to be, in the more horror moments they definitely had the look and certainly made the same kinds of noises as dinosaurs we’ve seen before in film. I’ve seen reviews say things like ‘Jurassic Park but with unicorns’ and while that’s kind of a lofty comparison, I certainly understand what they mean by it. The gore in this movie was pretty wild at times as well, so you horror hounds that are going into it hoping to see some of that classic blood, guts, and mayhem will hopefully be satisfied as well.
I enjoyed this movie a lot for its uniqueness and for me, uniqueness and originality goes a long way, especially when it comes to art. Tossing unicorns, horror elements, comedy, satirical storylines about the pharmaceutical industry and the healing effects of the unicorn’s horn with serious storylines about grief between a father and daughter’s shared loss, and even more into a blender and making it for the most part work is pretty damn impressive. Not that there wasn’t anything that lacked or could’ve been stronger because we’ll get to that in a minute, I’m in no way saying this was a perfect film. It was certainly a unique film though, and I had a real fun time with it, and that’s really what it’s all about at the end of the day. Now, onto some of my personal gripes just because I have to do my job here, it’s content. Kind of the double-edged sword of what I was saying earlier on, if you’re NOT a Jenna Ortega or Paul Rudd fan generally in movies, chances are you aren’t really going to like them in this. They don’t do a lot with their characters in this movie that differs from the typical Rudd or Ortega schtick, and their characters don’t feel super defined. Paul Rudd plays the desperate single father who’s completely consumed in impressing his self-absorbed bosses, while Ortega plays the distant, moody, hardened teenage daughter who doesn’t want to be at her dad’s work retreat, and that’s kind of their roles. I also wasn’t really bought into their father/daughter angle much either, that storyline in general felt a little thin. We knew they were both grieving the loss of their mom and wife respectively, but they didn’t ever really get too deep into that or unpack it much. Not that they needed to necessarily because that isn’t really what this kind of movie was, but it almost felt like if we weren’t going to unpack that entirely and make it a big turning point in their story then why even include it at all?
I’ve also heard some people say they didn’t care for the kills in this movie because they were more CGI than practical effects, and as a horror fan who likes those older horror films, I love me some practical effects and am a huge fan of some of the classic practical effects artists, but the CGI wasn’t shocking or bothersome for me here. The movie is about freaking unicorns, obviously there’s going to be a fair amount of CGI in the film already so the gore itself being CGI didn’t feel off-putting or really all that noticeable, at least for me, someone with an eye keener to those things or at least someone more on the lookout for them may notice it more than I did. Overall though as I stated before, I really enjoyed this film and took it for what it was. It’s a horror-comedy that’s neither too horrific nor too comedic, but more so a fun, eat the rich (semi literally), creature feature style movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I think this is mixed with some people because there’s high expectations when it comes to A24 studios in general a lot of the time, especially within the horror community, and this didn’t necessarily feel like an A24 film, not a bad thing in my mind, but I think a lot of people went into this movie with varying expectations given the cast and the studio behind it and that’s probably why some left disappointed. I think this movie is going to be one that ages well though as time passes, I certainly see myself watching this one again down the line as it comes out on streaming and probably even beyond that. So, I say it’s original and it delivered on its premise, so it did its job. Remember though, these are just my opinions, your experience with the film could be completely different. So, I recommend you check it out in theaters now or wait a few months and I’m sure it’ll be out on streaming or at least available to rent. Until next time, thank you!
