‘And here’s hoping we kill Bigfoot on the way back...’
I’ve written many times across these pages about how much I miss the high-concept, coke-fuelled ’80s movies that sounded ridiculous on paper but are a lot of fun in real life (Weird Science, Batteries Not Included, Ghostbusters, Big etc). So, surely I would be all in for Death of a Unicorn? It’s got a great cast, has the backing of acclaimed distribution company A24, and is certainly daft enough to have been released in the ’80s, so why is it so bland?
Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his daughter, Ridley (Jenna Ortega), hit a unicorn whilst travelling to the Canadian Rockies for a business trip. When it is revealed that the blood of the unicorn has healing properties, Odell (Richard E. Grant), Elliot’s boss and the head of a pharmaceutical company, sees the unicorn as a magic elixir to cure his terminal cancer and make lots of money in the process. Will Poulter also appears as Odell’s unscrupulous son, Shepard.
Written and directed by first time filmmaker, Alex Scharfman, Death of a Unicorn starts off great with Ortega’s bratty daughter exchanging barbs with Rudd’s well-meaning but ineffective father, but from the moment they hit the unicorn, everything goes downhill. The problem is that this film doesn’t know what it wants to be. Wikipedia describes it as a “dark fantasy comedy horror film”, when in reality, it excels in none of those areas. It’s never funny. It’s never frightening. It never really leans into the fantasy element of things in any kind of convincing way. Even worse, what Death of a Unicorn desperately wants to be is a satire of corporate greed. The problem is that not only is this well worn territory in recent years with various eat-the-rich films available to enjoy over the last decade or so, but the satire here is not smart or clever, and is also strangely toothless throughout. There is undoubtedly something to be said about the monetisation of pain and illness by Big Pharma, but this film doesn’t say any of it. Where is the anger? What’s the point in satirising something if you’ve nothing to say about it?
Death of a Unicorn was dismissed by audiences and critics alike upon release in March of 2025 and it’s unlikely to enjoy a reappraisal any time soon – a bad movie despite all the talent involved.
