A One Mann’s Movies review of “Death of a Unicorn” (2025).
A24 has normally been like a quality-mark on this sort of a film. A scan back through their back catalogue reveals a smorgasbord of great movies: “Under the Skin”, “Ex Machina“, “Room“, “The Lobster“, “Free Fire“, “Lady Bird“, “Saint Maud“, “Minari“, “The Green Knight”, “Bodies Bodies Bodies“, “Pearl” / “Maxxxine“, “Beau Is Afraid“, “You Hurt My Feelings“, “Past Lives“, “The Deepest Breath“, “Talk to Me“, “Dream Scenario“, “Love Lies Bleeding“, “Civil War“, “The Brutalist“…. the list goes on and on. Often innovative. Often challenging. Nearly always entertaining. And this subset excludes highly-regarded films that I personally wasn’t as keen on, e.g. “Moonlight” and “The Zone of Interest“. So it comes as a bit of a downer that their last two offerings: last month’s “Opus” and now “Death of a Unicorn” were… well… underwhelming. They’re not “BAD”…. but given the A24 brand on them, I wasn’t blown away by them.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“Death of a Unicorn” Plot:
Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) are not close despite the recent death of his wife / her mother. Ridley is an important dragalong for a critical business meeting at the wilderness estate of Odell Leopold (Richard E Grant) who is dying of cancer. But en route to the estate, the careless Elliot hits and apparently kills a strange ‘horse-like mamalia’: as Ridley rightly points out “It’s a fucking unicorn”!
Certification:
UK: 15; US: NR. (From the BBFC web site: “Strong bloody violence, horror, gore, language”)
Talent:
Starring: Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Richard E Grant, Anthony Carrigan, Téa Leoni, Will Poulter, Jessica Hynes, Sunita Mani, Steve Park.
Directed by: Alex Scharfman.
Written by: Alex Scharfman.
Running Time: 1h 47m.
“Death of a Unicorn” Summary:
Positives:
- The concept is great and there are moments when this works well.
- Jenna Ortega is terrific.
- Some splendidly gory kills.
Negatives:
- The film is a knowing mash-up of lots of other sci-fi films.
- The comedy is patchy and (for me) smile-worthy rather than laugh-worthy.
- The CGI unicorns are distractingly bad.
Review of “Death of a Unicorn”:
On the plus side….
This had a trailer that has been shown to death. But I remember the first time I saw it and I laughed out loud with anticipation. The concept of the film is great. Sadly, the execution was less good for me and the film’s basic concept – a unicorn in a road traffic accident – is the main thing it has going for it.
But, still focusing on the positives, there are scenes in this film that really worked well. I loved the opening of the film through to the road accident and the aftermath of that. Very slick. Very stylish. And some of the action sequences, leading to some very gory head-squishing and disembowelments, are well done (CGI excepted).
Jenna Ortega excels.
The one actor in this that really impressed me was Jenna Ortega. The 22-year-old is building up a nice little portfolio of performances, with her roles as Tara Carpenter in the “Scream” reboots, TV’s “Wednesday” (Addams) and more recently in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice“. Here she has to deliver both fear in the face of terrifying creatures, compassion and some tender moments with her father. It’s quite a range and I thought she did it magnificently.
Another part I enjoyed was Anthony Carrigan’s put-upon manservant Griff, all eye-rolling at the outrageous demands of the rich Leopold family prats he has to wait on. I also enjoyed Sunita Mani as Dr Bhatia, one of the two scientists: Mani is great as the protagnonist’s sister in the upcoming “A Nice Indian Boy”.
Fairing less well for me were Will Poulter, Téa Leoni and Richard E Grant, but this might be less about their performances and more because I found the characters so unrealistic and irritating.
It was also a surprise to find the comedienne Jessica Hynes in a very serious role and dressed as Nurse Diesel!
A general pillaging of concepts.
It’s notable just how many classic movies feel pillaged in the creation of this and, I felt, almost deliberately so:
- The closest cousin to this is Jurassic Park, with some of the action scenes mirroring the plot (e.g. when the power goes out, Griff (Anthony Carrigan), is sent out to an out-building to fix something;
- There are elements of E.T. in the healing powers and the white tunnel going into the house. Not to mention Rudd’s character being called Elliot(t);
- There are elements of “Jaws”, with greed constantly battling against common sense and their survival instincts. (And surely no coincidence that their surname is Kintner (RIP Alex);
- I even detected a soupçon of “Super 8” in the strange cosmic connection to the spirit of the dead mother.
It’s actually a nice touch (presumably deliberate) that Richard E Grant’s character’s unusual Christian name, “Odell”, is shared with Odell Shepard, author of what seems to be one of the definitive books on the subject “The Lore of the Unicorn”.
The comedy wasn’t funny enough for me.
For a film tagged as “Comedy/Horror/Fantasy/Thriller”, I’m afraid I didn’t laugh enough to really merit the Comedy tag. It didn’t make the 6-laugh test for me. There were a few smiles, but I found Will Poulter’s rich prat of a son more irritating than funny.
You’ll believe these CGI Unicorns don’t exist.
I’ve just looked it up, and the reported budget for the film is ‘only’ $15 million. So this is a fairly low-budget offering in the world of A24 films. But that being said, the realisation of the unicorns was, for me, distractingly poor at times. “Jurassic Park” made you genuinely believe a dinosaur had been brought back to life…. and that was 32 years ago. These unicorns definitely felt like mythical creatures.
Summary Thoughts on “Death of a Unicorn”
It’s far from the worse film I’ve seen this year, and my low-ish rating largely stems from my disappointment after the expectation from the trailer. It’s a fun-enough popcorn brain-parker, but given the concept I would have wished for it to be much better.
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Death of a Unicorn”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62pyfjnzIuc.
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