3/10
We’ve been suffering through a drought lately. It’s been years since we’ve gotten a totally wild, deeply hilarious, camp film—something unheard of and weird and 100 percent unique.
But Death of A Unicorn isn’t that. In fact, it isn’t even close.
The film follows Elliot (Paul Rudd) and his complicated relationship with his daughter, Ridley (Jenna Ortega). After they run over a unicorn and discover its magical properties, chaos ensues as Elliot’s billionaire boss tries to monetize the unicorn’s healing properties. It’s intended to be a dark comedy, with unicorns waging war against humans as revenge, but most of its humor relies on forced awkwardness. It lacks both natural progression and realism. It is the living embodiment of the millennial pause.
More specifically, Death of A Unicorn suffers from the leading cause of bad movies: a terrible script. It doesn’t create funny situations or likeable characters and fails to build tension. The film assumes the audience will care about the characters and plot just because they’re watching them—the cardinal sin of screenwriting.
Just because a movie is silly doesn’t mean the script gets a pass on good writing. Patchiness can’t be covered up by camp. Camp classics from decades past, like Death Becomes Her and Clue, take their writing incredibly seriously. They play interesting tricks, create memorable and eccentric characters, and make unpredictable choices. Death of A Unicorn does none of that.
Paul Rudd plays a caricature of himself. His “dad next-door” and “lovable doormat” personas feel out of place and tire quickly. He’s technically the film’s main antagonist, with morals completely up for sale. I normally really love Rudd, but here he’s grating and pest-like. When he inevitably has his come-to-Jesus moment and realizes his wrongs (displayed in two predictable and cringy monologues about his wife’s death and love for his daughter), you feel absolutely no sympathy for him.
Jenna Ortega is better but not great. Ridley, though intended to be the film’s hero, is actually pretty annoying. She does nothing to stand up for the dead unicorn or to call out her dad for abandoning his morals. Instead, she just sits there and complains. Ortega tries her absolute best to provide depth and emotion while staring at ancient unicorn tapestries, but the role is underdeveloped.
Everyone else in the film is crazy, and not really in a fun way. The supporting cast play what feel like the most exaggerated SNL characters from completely different sketches that somehow all make you ask, “Is SNL not funny now?” It’s sloppy, uncoordinated, and incoherent.
On a visual note, Death of A Unicorn is an attempt at ’80s-style camp humor with only slightly better special effects. The unicorn looks like it was made using the same software as the dinosaurs in the first Jurassic Park. Halfway through the film, the unicorn inexplicably changes color from white to gray and then later turns back. The special effects are choppy and awkward. Low-budget filmmaking is challenging, but if you can’t create believable unicorns in a movie about unicorns, maybe don’t make the movie.
Death of a Unicorn—sorry, The Menu—wait no, Triangle of Sadness—actually, Saltburn—or maybe Parasite—provides a completely new warning: social climbing can be dangerous, and the ultra-rich are ultra-crazy. Mind-blowing stuff.
There are, however, two enjoyable things in the movie. The first is the film’s dedication to explaining every single way one could use the shavings of a unicorn horn as a drug. We see it boiled and shot through needles, snorted, and smoked multiple ways. Now that is a full-fledged concept.
The second is that the kills are extremely enjoyable. One takes great pleasure in seeing another insufferable character die a gruesome death by unicorn, and these are the only naturally funny moments in the entire movie. The film’s moment of triumph is when a unicorn steps on an unnamed servant’s head and pops it like a zit.
Death of A Unicorn’s forced comedy, shallow writing, bad special effects, and unenjoyable characters make the film fall flat on its face. But maybe in a nostalgia wave 30 years from now, it’ll get a second life as the camp cult-classic it so desperately want to be.
