A24 has been feeding us a steady diet of weird for quite a while now, but within their swelling catalogue of thoughtful horror, thought provoking war films and indie drama, one genre they’ve never been properly lauded for is comedy. They’ve done comedy of course and they’ve done it extremely well as multiple Oscars for the magnificent Everything, Everywhere All At Once will attest; but even though the studio has been responsible for the likes of The Disaster Artist, Swiss Army Man and Bodies Bodies Bodies, a good belly laugh isn’t really the first thing you naturally think of when you picture A24’s output.
2024’s woefully giggle-free Y2K certainly didn’t help, but hoping to make up some ground in the smirking stakes is shamelessly eccentric Death Of A Unicorn, which hopes to use it’s magical protrusion to bring together comedy, horror, gore, monsters, fantasy and some good old condemnation of the upper class. Does it succeed, or will laughs be rarer than sightings of the titular beast itself?
Feuding daddy/daughter duo Elliot and Ridley Kintner are driving through the Canadian wilderness to spend the weekend with the Leopolds, the obscenely wealthy family who Elliot works for. Supposedly an all-giving clan of entrepreneurs, we soon find that the unit are a selfish band of gaslighting opportunists who seemingly have gotten even worse since family patriarch Odell started dying of cancer and he’s flanked by calculating wife, Belinda and boorish son Shepard who all seem to be as bad as one another.
However, while Elliot is dead set on being welcomed into their inner circle, his willingness to sell his soul is a never ending worry for the teenage Ridley ever since her mother passed away. But if the moral problems of sucking up to the Leopolds in their remote pelatial mansion aren’t bad enough, matters are made infinitely more complex when Elliot runs over a strange beast on route. Examining the creature, it seems to be some sort of horse-like creature with a telltale horn in the centre of its forehead that seemingly marks it out to be a Unicorn and after touching it’s horn, Ridley has mind melting cosmic vision of what looks like the infinite. However, there’s no time to discuss the more delicate points of the universe when the Leopolds are being kept waiting, so the Unicorn is bundled into the back of their rental and they drive off to their meeting.
Of course, fantasy creatures made flesh prove to be rather unpredictable, even in death and when it temporarily resurrects, the Leopolds soon discover that many parts of a Unicorn have healing properties which not only help Ridley and Elliot with personal issues like acne or the need for glasses, but it manages to work wonders for Odells cancer too, virtually curing it overnight. With a miracle cure for virtually everything at their fingertips, the Leopolds ramp up their fanatical greed much to Ridley’s horror, but a swift, same day delivery of karma is due when the Unicorn’s parents come calling…
So while the notion of a comedic satire monster movie featuring Unicorns seems to be impressively original, I have to say that the vast majority of Alex Scharfman’s Death Of A Unicorn seems cribbed from the middle section of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Remember that bit where everyone seems to be passing around that injured T-Rex baby for reasons both altruistic and selfish and then the Rex parents rock up like a couple of saurian helicopter parents and start kicking ass? Well, that’s essentially this movie if the scene were stretched out to feature length and it’s to the credit to everyone involved that the film proves to be fun enough to stand on its own four hooves. In fact, at times it really does feel like A24 are trying to make a kooky, Amblin-style kids film for adults and if you treat it thusly, you’ll reap the biggest rewards.
The rather fancy cast is impressively game and leading the charge is Jenna Ortega who, with yet another kooky, sullen, but ultimately good hearted teen role seems to be this generation’s Wynona Ryder. Lending even more credence to my Amblin for adults theory, she plays the only sane voice in the entire film as everyone else’s eyeballs soon cloud over with dollar signs the second the true value of strip mining a Unicorn becomes apparent. Elsewhere, I’m not sure if I’m imagining things, but as the movie progressed I was convinced that Paul Rudd was trying to channel Rick Moranis as his failing parent, Elliot. Not only does Rudd play downtrodden rather well, the tucked in shirt, side parting and glasses feel very much like he’s based his loving but flawed dad character heavily on the retired actor – which I’m utterly cool with, even if the movie arguably drags out his issues with his daughter a bit too long.
However, the real fun comes from the hideous entitlement that pulses out from the Leopolds in waves and you can tell that all three actors (plus Jessica Hynes as their jack booted head of security) are having a whale of a time playing the absolute worse people they can provide. Richard E. Grant is a master of playing self important, upper class tyrants, so I would hardly call Odell a stretch – but he is funny, as is Téa Leoni’s extravagant matriarch. However, it’s Will Poulter’s shorts obsessed Sheppard who completely steals the show as the self obsessed man-child nabs all the best lines, scores the biggest laughs and even snorts some ground Unicorn horn for his troubles.
It’s obvious from the Leopold’s scenery chewing that the satire on show here is supposed to be broad (torso stabbing Unicorns are hardly the harbinger of subtlety) which again feels like more of a hint that the film is more of a kids film for adults and shouldn’t be taken too seriously and bizarrely adding to this are the Unicorns themselves.
Less a more My Little Pony type of fantasy nag, these Unicorns are a Shire Horse sized beast and incredibly feral in appearance, but at times the budget fails to do them justice as more of a couple of dodgy visual shots manage to squeeze into the final edit. However, while bad CGI tends to put a lot of people off nowadays, it does oddly add to that deranged kids film aesthetic that the movie is trying to obtain. Regardless, it’s still incredibly novel watching a highly recognisable cast be stalked around a mansion, Jurassic Park-style by monstrous versions of the kind of things you’d usually find in a child’s storybook and it’s even more novel watching them get torn limb from limb.
Anyone expecting a more refined, trippy satire may be a bit disappointed at how much Death Of A Unicorn leans on more typical monster tropes to carry it through it’s second half (someone’s obviously a big fan of the motion scanner from Aliens). However, those wanting a creature feature that feels a little different should be thankful that A24 has thought to grab the bull (and other pointy-headed animals) by the magical horns.
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