By: Ryan Dailey
Death of a Unicorn plays out as if it were some strange hybrid of Adult Swim’s Common Side Effects and I Know What You Did Last Summer, if the former’s mushroom was replaced with unicorn blood and the latter’s character played by Barry Cox swapped out with a unicorn.
The film opens with Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his daughter, Ridley (Jenna Ortega) as they make their way through the Rockies as Elliot is to become the legal liaison for Odel Leopold, (Richard E. Grant) whose cancer is in its final stages. The father and daughter execute a traditional exposition dump in this scene, having a heated argument about how their relationship has begun to deteriorate after the passing of the matriarch of the family. Elliot’s allergies decide to rear its head and, as he is in the midst of a sneezing fit, his car into a…. unicorn.
Elliot and Ridley need to put the creature out of its misery by means of a tire iron. The duo quickly realize that the purple blood they are covered in completely cures Elliot’s allergies and clears up Ridley’s acne. They even go as far as to give some to Odel, curing his cancer.
This all sounds great, until they realize that the unicorn is not only still alive, but it has family looking for it.
The movie quickly turns into a hamfisted narrative of how terrible the wealthy are wrapped up in a monster movie. The film could benefit from scrapping the “eat the rich” narrative, instead focusing on the father and daughter and their fight for survival. If one can look past this and the SYFY movie of the week CGI, there is an enjoyable film here. The way the characters play off one another flows great, a feat that most ensemble casts can not pull off. Paul Rudd, while playing the straight man, brings his 1980’s Chevy Chase/Dan Aykroyd style of delivery to every scene that he is in. The deaths in the film are top notch, giving the horror nation what we crave, creativity and plenty of blood.
Death of a Unicorn receives a solid 3.9 out of 5.Death of a Unicorn is currently playing in theaters.