by Tim Gordon
Alex Scharfman’s Death of a Unicorn is one of those genre mash-ups that looks delightfully weird on paper: part dark fantasy, part absurdist comedy, part horror fable about a mythical creature whose accidental death sends a father and daughter down a rabbit hole of greed, moral corruption, and cosmic retribution.
It’s a striking premise, and with Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega leading the charge, it ought to work. But despite moments of twisted charm and flashes of subversive wit, this debut feature never quite finds the sharp teeth it needs to pull off its high-concept promise.
The setup is as odd as it sounds. Elliot Kintner (Rudd) is an everyday corporate middle-manager roped into a weekend getaway at the sprawling estate of his boss, the imperious Odell Leopold (a delightfully slimy Richard E. Grant). He brings along his teenage daughter, Ridley (Ortega, once again proving she’s a genre MVP) for what should be a forced bit of father-daughter bonding. But on a lonely forest road, they hit something, not a deer, but a small, otherworldly unicorn. In a panic, Elliot finishes the wounded creature off, covering them both in shimmering, iridescent blood that, it turns out, has miraculous healing properties.
Before they know it, Ridley’s acne has vanished, Elliot’s allergies are gone, and the Leopolds Odell, his calculating wife Belinda (Téa Leoni), and their spoiled son Shepard (Will Poulter, enjoyably smarmy) catch wind of the magical roadkill in the trunk. The unicorn’s body becomes a grotesque commodity, prodded and sliced up by an unscrupulous team of corporate scientists hoping to bottle its power and sell it to the highest bidder. Scharfman weaves in a sly critique of unchecked capitalism, but it’s handled with such broad strokes that the commentary never cuts deep enough to truly sting.
Meanwhile, Ridley is haunted by visions connected to the unicorn’s horn, cosmic flashes that suggest a deeper, older magic that humans shouldn’t be tampering with. She’s the only one who seems to grasp the mythic weight of what they’ve done. The Leopolds, naturally, dismiss her concerns until the real horror shows up: the unicorn’s much larger, vengeful parents who aren’t about to let their offspring’s death go unanswered.
Paul Rudd plays it straight as Elliot, a man so out of his depth he barely realizes how monstrous he’s become until it’s too late. Rudd’s natural everyman likability makes his moral decay a bit more compelling than the script often deserves. Jenna Ortega does what she does best, mixing wide-eyed curiosity with deadpan horror as Ridley tries, and mostly fails, to rein in the adults’ worst impulses. Will Poulter and Richard E. Grant relish their supporting turns, each adding a twisted bit of bite to the film’s dark fairy tale tone.
Tonally, Death of a Unicorn wants to be a savage fable about the perils of exploitation — a cautionary tale about human greed at the expense of nature’s mysteries. But for all its genre-blending ambition, the film struggles to balance its horror and comedy elements. The pacing sags in places where the satire could have been sharper, and the bursts of violence, while gleefully absurd, feel more like narrative jolts than earned escalations.
Scharfman’s visual flourishes, the way the unicorn’s blood glows under moonlight, the eerie hush of the forest when its parents arrive, hint at a more potent dark fantasy lurking just out of reach. But ultimately, the film is never quite as twisted, funny, or profound as it wants to be.
Death of a Unicorn is an interesting misfire, a high-concept fairy tale that grazes true strangeness but pulls back just when it should lean in. Rudd and Ortega keep things afloat with solid performances, and there’s just enough unsettling imagery and pitch-black humor to make it worth a look for fantasy fans who enjoy their fables off-kilter. But in the end, this mythical beast never fully comes to life.
An intriguing, oddball ride with flashes of dark magic, undone by uneven storytelling and half-baked satire. There’s a sharper film buried inside Death of a Unicorn, but like its elusive mythical creature, it mostly remains out of reach.
Grade: C+