Style storytelling usually includes the reiteration of sure tropes and concepts, with new twists and contexts serving to fashionable tasks stand other than their influences. It’s a apply that 2024’s dread-filled thriller Heretic hinged on, and writer-director Alex Scharfman’s first characteristic, the fantastical horror-comedy Demise of a Unicorn, sounds on paper like a dovetailed combine between I Know What You Did Final Summer time and The Simpsons’ “Burger Kings.”
Demise Of A Unicorn
Launch Date: March 28, 2025
Directed By: Alex Scharfman
Written By: Alex Scharfman
Starring: Jenna Ortega, Paul Rudd, Richard E. Grant, Téa Leoni, Will Poulter, Anthony Carrigan
Score: R for sturdy violent content material, gore, language and a few drug use.
Runtime: 104 minutes
Fortunately, regardless of any controversial surface-level similarities shared, Demise of a Unicorn is a madcap morality story unto itself, mashing collectively two households with wildly differing ideologies on how one can strategy an unintended conundrum that might change the course of human historical past. It’s maybe unlucky that one household — widower Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his thorny daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) — usually feels ported from a extra homogenized model of the script when sharing scenes with the magnificent Leopold clan.
The hyper-wealthy and in any other case oblivious Leopolds comprise the divergence level the place Demise of a Unicorn goes from emotional daddy-daughter drama to unpitying satire, and it’s throughout these most bonkers and bloody sequences the place Scharfman’s efforts are most rewarding. Which is why it’s largely unlucky that Elliot and Ridley are the primary characters we’re imagined to be rooting for.
Alex Scharfman crafted a brilliantly simple premise for Demise of a Unicorn that’s weakened by Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd’s characters.
Rudd’s Elliot Kintner is an lawyer who could be very clearly extra comfy coping with occupational hazards than having an genuine dialog together with his daughter Ridley (Ortega), and it is clear that his spouse’s loss of life has weakened his parenting expertise much more. To be truthful, Ridley has all of the hallmarks of an overdramatic on-screen teen, and would not present the best path to kinship for her middle-aged father.
Street journeys might and needs to be enjoyable, however the pair are largely at odds throughout their drive out to the lavish abode of Elliot’s boss Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), whose declining well being requires a gathering of the minds to keep away from a complete disaster. And it is that assembly that Elliot is obsessing over when he unwittingly smashes his automobile right into a residing, respiratory (for now) unicorn. Ridley discovers the magical creature’s glowing horn has a definite influence when touched, making her probably the most empathetic and sympathetic character all through all of the chaos to come back.
With out getting too deep into spoilers, the horn gives sudden well being advantages that the Leopold household could be very eager to make the most of and exploit, which is what drives a wedge between Elliot and Ridley. Regardless of some inherently humorous and brutal moments brought on by their imbalance, the duo’s scenes are full of avoidable sitcom-esque conflicts that might virtually all be resolved with a single two-minute dialog. Relatively than being a genuinely nice father to his child’s face, Elliot thinks impressing his boss will result in a extra financially safe future, which might theoretically make him an ideal dad in the long term.
If your complete film was a two-hander simply between Rudd and Ortega, their story won’t really feel as cliché. However as soon as the Leopolds’ outlandishness is on show in full, Elliot and Ridley’s inherently extra necessary relationship will get fully overshadowed –regardless of the script persevering with its makes an attempt to strike that emotional chord.
Will Poulter and Anthony Carrigan are scene-stealing geniuses from begin to end.
Let’s correctly meet the Leopolds and their loyal employees, we could? On the head is the bedridden Odell(Richard E. Grant) and his seemingly doting spouse Belinda, with Téa Leoni bringing her signature edge to a personality who looks as if a doting spouse and mom till she is not. And Grant additionally performs into his performative strengths as Odell, who goes from sluggish and sickly to stoic and Shakespearean as he’s launched to the unicorn’s medical advantages.
But it surely’s the couple’s endlessly pampered and spoiled son Shepard who earns the lion’s share of Demise of a Unicorn‘s laughs, with Will Poulter meting out a career-best efficiency. Regardless of not having any of his father’s illnesses, Shep finally ends up benefiting from the unicorn horn’s mystical powers himself, which magnifies his personal inflated ego and sense of self-worth. From his questionable style decisions to his echoing screams into the evening from a scorching tub, practically each one in every of Poulter’s on-screen moments is a comedic spotlight.
All that stated, this movie’s comedy crown in all probability deserves to be shared with Barry and Gotham vet Anthony Carrigan, who makes a employees meal out of what may in any other case have been a forgettable character in a lesser actor’s fingers. He performs the Leopold’s butler Griff, whose unyielding dedication to the household is clearly a detriment to his personal psychological well being – which is stretched to a breaking level as soon as lifeless unicorns and tales of mythological vengeance enter the image.
For each crass and loud declaration uttered by Poulter’s Shep, Carrigan’s Griff sells a second with simply his longing and/or defeated eyes, and it is a testomony to his expertise that he earns as many huge laughs as others do with out an abundance of dialogue.
Each the movie’s fantasy mythology and unicorn CGI veer between efficiently fascinating and awkwardly missing.
Demise of a Unicorn won’t have been greater than a brief movie if its antagonistic household was in a position to manipulate the unicorn horn’s advantages with none opposing forces, and I applaud Alex Scharfman for drawing upon “real-world” mythologies to offer the titular creatures their very own arc throughout the film. Ridley colleges herself in such lore, and makes efforts to get everybody on her facet, however to no avail.
However for all that I am into with the introduction of such lore, the historic context offered is considerably simplistic, and would not give Ridley a lot to work with when half-assedly making an attempt to make others conscious. I seemingly would not have believed her both, and I know she’s telling a movie-truth.
The identical mixture of appreciation and disappointment will be utilized to the movie’s CGI unicorns. By and huge, the close-ups of the creatures are superior, particularly because the film’s horror vibes are working time beyond regulation and their sharp tooth are on show. However the digital wizardry falls flatter in wider photographs, the place the hulking beasts gallop round with actions which might be clearly non-organic and really feel weightless throughout the settings.
Regardless of any lows tied to narrative explanations and visible results, nevertheless, Demise of a Unicorn is certainly wildly profitable when seen particularly for its horror-comedy parts. The laughs are sharp and plentiful, and the gore is gross and masterful, usually coinciding throughout the identical scenes.
Alex Scharfman has confirmed himself worthy of directing extra quotable, splatter-tastic options sooner or later, and one can solely hope that he will get to work with a equally incredible forged the following time round. However even when not everybody could make it, Will Poulter and Anthony Carrigan needs to be prioritized.