Death of a Unicorn (2025)

Shun the nonbeliever! Shuunnnn!

There’s a fine line between a film with a fluid tone whose unpredictability is charming, and a film whose tonal messiness is movie-ruining. Borderline, for all its scatterbrained quirkiness, knew how to ride the chaos, skidding through three genres at once and somehow avoiding a total wreck. I had fun. Death of a Unicorn, on the other hand, hydroplanes into a ditch. It’s a film with many moods but no ideas how to have a good time. I wish I could say it resulted into some sort of charming oddity. It has a unique hook and is the kind of film I want to like. But it’s one of my bigger disappointments of the year so far.

Death of a Unicorn is a thriller-comedy-satire and a creature feature. It’s the latest in a long parade of eat-the-rich morality tales, which I have inadvertently binged in the past month (see: Opus, Blink Twice). Pretty much everything about this film is miscalibrated: the drama lacks heft; the satire is turned up to an unbearable screech like a mic giving feedback; the thrills are empty and ugly. Any sense of wonder and mysticism that you might expect from a unicorn-themed film is absent, and not in an intentional subversion kind of way. The film’s charm is lost in its lack of tonal control. It’s just a flavorless genre mélange.

Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his teenage daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) are driving through the woods towards the estate of Elliot’s wealthy boss, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), where they plan to spend the weekend, with Elliot hoping to get a promotion (or some such). As they’re cruising down the road, they crash into a four-legged creature. Investigating their roadkill, they discover that it’s a… well, you read the film’s title. Ridley touches the unicorn’s horn and suddenly experiences cosmic visions, sensing in its last breaths of life great power and great peace. Disrupting that epiphany is Elliot, who clobbers it with a tire iron then shoves it into their trunk.

At the Leopold estate, kooky stuff starts happening. The Leopolds find the stashed unicorn and infer its magical powers. They harness it for its healing abilities, and they immediately begin brainstorming ways to monetize their discovery: a new pharmaceutical venture selling ground up unicorn horn as an expensive miracle drug. Matters take a turn for the worse when a couple of larger unicorns (the original apparently a foal) show up and are none too thrilled about this planned unicorn exploitation. Commence horn impalements, jump scares, and CGI gore that never quite feels earned or part of the whole.

This is the debut of Alex Scharfman, and while I’ll always root for new filmmakers swinging for something weird and original, I emerge disappointed. The CGI is frankly atrocious — muddy, fake-looking (I legitimately couldn’t tell if the artificiality of the unicorns was intentional), and prone to undercutting any awe or horror the story might summon at key moments. The unicorn designs are bafflingly bland when they should be the main attraction. And the story’s pace and flow are very clumsy: the film charts its course by the midpoint and then spends another 50 minutes idling toward a finale that isn’t rich or surprising.

The best part of the film is the cast. Will Poulter is hysterically funny throughout the film, playing an insufferable rich kid with just the right blend of entitlement and obliviousness. Rudd does what he can to thread the needle between sketch comedy, fatherly pathos, and set piece action. Unsurprisingly, he’s most comfortable in the register of self-deprecating cringe. The supporting cast is solid all around: Sunita Mani, in particular, is a low-key standout as a panicked scientist out of her depth.

But the real highlights is Jenna Ortega. She attacks the material hard, way harder than it deserves, like this is some real awards contender and not a silly lark of a film. It’s unquestionably a better performance than the movie deserves, but I won’t complain. Her character doesn’t have much comedic material, but Ortega carries the dramatic load so capably that it almost convinces you this thing has emotional stakes.

Even by the standards of a broad satire, Death of a Unicorn operates in a realm of cartoonish extremes. The film’s central conflict is exceedingly on the nose (on the horn?): Soulless one-percenters harvesting all that is good and pure in this world without consideration for how it will harm the broader world. It’s painted in such thick strokes that it has no bite. They’re literally slaying and grinding up a pure white unicorn. It’s not fun or clever enough to earn its silliness, so it’s sometimes nails on a chalkboard.

Death of a Unicorn is a film that excites me in its concept — a goofy thriller with an unusual creature at the center, one that suggests a blend of mystical and silly along with A24’s usual art-lite, pseudo-brainy energy. The movie is not totally absent zest or wit. I admire the cast for really going for it. But Scharfman’s execution lacks the vision or control to bring it all to life.

Is It Good?

Not Very Good (3/8)

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Awards and Honors

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Dan is the founder and head critic of The Goods. Follow Dan on Letterboxd. Join the Discord for updates and discussion.