Death of a Unicorn review – goodbye horses, good riddance

There was a time when seeing the A24 logo offered some promise – but as Death of the Unicorn is the company’s second flop in under a month, it seems as if the ultra cool film studio might have lost some of their magic.

Death of a Unicorn, a horror-comedy (although it barely merits either genre) from debut director Alex Scharfman, follows father-daughter duo Elliott (Paul Rudd) and Ridley (Jenna Ortega), as they embark on a trip to meet Elliott’s new employers. Before they reach the secluded residence of the Leopold family – Odell (Richard E. Grant), Belinda (Téa Leoni) and Shepard (Will Poulter) – they hit a unicorn with their car and decide to put it out of its misery. With no place to dump the corpse of the mythical creature, they end up bringing their roadkill to the Leopold estate.

Of course an Eat the Rich caper begins when the Sackler-esque family realises the beast’s blood contains regenerative properties, then plods clunkily along with an unnecessary amount of focus on the scientific discoveries of the unicorn’s biology, the Leopolds’ experiments with its blood and how they can profit off the discovery. Perhaps this section would feel more amusing if the many comedic actors in the cast were bouncing off one another rather than doing their own discordant skits, or perhaps the critique of the elite would feel fresher if this film didn’t come years after Parasite, Triangle of Sadness and The Menu, which makes Death of a Unicorn feel a little long in the horn.

Not only is the film painfully unfunny despite the cast being stacked with comedic actors (including Spaced’s Jessica Hynes who is woefully underutilized as the family’s bodyguard), Death of a Unicorn is visually dull despite its magical premise. The creature design itself sports some oversized canines to imbue the usually innocent unicorn with some horrific qualities, but overall is decidedly unimpressive. In fact, like many recent fantasies which have followed the doggedly realist route of Christopher Nolan’s Batman series, the unicorn has undergone grey-ification. Here it misses a trick that the creators of Gremlins or the twisted minds behind the gratuitously violent Happy Tree Friends understood: adorable creatures that turn monstrous are even more frightening than the grotesque.

As can be gathered long before Ridley – the anointed insightful one of the group – realises, the unicorn that has now become laboratory fodder, was not alone. After what feels like an ungodly amount of time, the other hoof does eventually drop in the form of a vengeful mono-horned stallion terrorizing the Leopold’s family and staff. However just as Death of a Unicorn reins in the sparkly, rainbow visuals you may have expected, it’s also restrained with its gore, offering only a few tame death sequences and much painfully dull speculation about how exactly the survivors should escape. Death of a Unicorn relies heavily on a mythical gimmick and the comedic prowess of its cast, and yet gives neither actor or equine enough material to gallop with.