When you analyse that movie title, it’s a strange melding of subjects and vibes from A24, but to be fair the entertainment company generally delights in the unexpected and subverting expectations so… situation is normal, I guess. “Death of…” would indicate either a gruesome incident or an adult satire. “…A Unicorn” would suggest fuzzy and inoffensive shenanigans, usually replete with shining rainbows, life lessons, and anime animals. Suffice to say, this is something entirely different. DOAU premiered at the SXSW festival in March 2025 and was written/directed by Alex Scharfman as a feature-length debut. Believe it or not, John Carpenter was originally going to do the soundtrack (which would have been awesome!), until the production crew decided a more “organic” sound was needed (which was a crappy decision!). In all fairness, it does have a pretty killer cast, including Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, Jessica Hynes, and Richard E. Grant. Putting that cast in a comedy-horror and making it an A24 production should make most genre fans salivate at the prospect. The final result and box-office takings… well, maybe not so much. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Released a week earlier in the States, it’s now the turn of the UK cinemas to get the horn…  

 

We’re introduced to Elliot Kintner (Rudd) and his teenage daughter Ridley (Ortega). Recently widowed, company lawyer Elliot is struggling to remain emotionally connected to Ridley, who remains highly critical of his work ethic and his decision to drag her along to meet his odious bosses, the Leopolds. Head of a pharmaceutical company, patriarch Odell Leopold (E. Grant) owns an estate in a remote American forest that doubles as a nature reserve. Driving to the estate, the Kintners knock over a horse-like animal, which seems to have a prominent horn growing from its head. Knowing exactly what it looks like, they remove the creature from the road and take it to the Leopold estate. This is mainly done to avoid legal repercussions rather than any altruistic or noble intent though. However, contact with the animal has cured Ridley of her skin condition and Elliot of his allergies. So, cancer-suffering Odell sees not only a way to cure himself but also a way to curry favour with society and line his pockets with gold. As a result, Ridley does some research and knows that this is a course of self-destruction. Pity nobody will listen to her…

 

Just like that title, the film is a weird conjoining of narratives and genres, and you could almost cut it down the middle. On the one hand, you have the increasingly evident and cliched “rich people are total shits” plot thread. On the other hand, you have an update of Gorgo and a dozen other monster flicks, where the bad guys mistreat a junior cryptid and pay for it in blood. And it certainly doesn’t stint on the blood. These are not Disney Unicorns or your usual movie versions… well, maybe the one you glimpse in The Cabin in the Woods. These specimens are very much of the FAFO variety. Henceforth, they behave more like equine velociraptors with umpteen stabbings and puncture wounds with horns, as well as people being disembowelled and torn apart with surprisingly toothsome maws. It’s a high concept that doesn’t quite gel. Despite the best efforts of E. Grant and Poulter, the humour isn’t particularly funny and, ironically for a film about unicorns, it’s not very sharp and feels a little pointless.

 

As it stands, the scene is set for a clash of ancient lore and the bad behaviour of humankind, just until the midway mark when it becomes a rip-off of scenes from the Alien films. No, seriously, we have a motion detector sequence, a mad dash down confined corridors, and (of course) that poster scene which is an obvious “homage” to Alien 3. You have to wonder if “Ridley” is another nod to that effect and whether “Kintner” is a genre salute as well (related to the unfortunate Alex Kintner in “Jaws”?). Incidentally, there are also Edgar Wright references as the smash-cut-tooling-up sequences are in evidence (making coffee and gathering weapons). Very Shaun of the Dead and “Hot Fuzz”. Not to mention the involvement of the perennially underused Raynes, a Simon Pegg partner from “Spaced” and “Shaun” who spouts some English colloquialisms that will have Americans scratching their heads.

 

You have to give credit to the cast in the way in which they try and make the lines hilarious. It never gets boring watching E. Grant chew on lines like “Why should we trust your folkloric theological suppositions?” and similar dialogue. Poulter also does his best as a doofus who’s obsessed with booze and hot tubs. But the necessary father-daughter chemistry between Rudd and Ortega is weak at best. Especially as Elliot is a thoroughly dislikable sycophant with his nose buried up the Leopold family’s collective rectums for 99% of the time. He never listens to his (mostly) sensible daughter, and it gets tiring (and rather depressing) seeing how he never does “the right thing” due to his self-obsession with getting the widowed family into a “comfortable position”. Still, that’s satire folks (at least in this movie). It’s kind of cool seeing Ortega embody the role of the modern incarnation of a “pure-hearted maiden”, even if she vapes incessantly and swears like Malcolm Tucker at a stag do. The trouble is that Ortega isn’t given that much to work with, mostly being required to widen her eyes and look aghast at everything in each scene. Rubbery dialogue like “Philanthropy is just reputation laundering for the oligarchy” doesn’t really help either.

 

Something just seems a bit off. It might be the decision to use a Unicorn as the deus ex machina. The idea was probably to subvert the cosy “My Little Pony” image and reverse them into the feral objects of fear that they may once have represented. Admittedly, the highlights (from a horror fan perspective anyway) are the scenes of a vampire-toothed horse beast literally ripping the guts out of a victim and other similarly gratuitous gobbets of gore. But that’s at odds with the very obvious satirical digs at the horrible selfishness of the upper classes and how the entitled hoard resources which should be shared. The only real poignant and on-the-nose moment comes when Ridley comments that a potential cure for cancer would have never been made available to her mother should the strategy of the Leopold family come to fruition (“Mum wouldn’t have got a sniff of it”). And speaking of sniffing… yes, one asshole does resort to inhaling powdered unicorn horn, in a needless moment of crassness.

 

Perhaps if another cryptid, say the Jersey Devil or Mothman, was used instead of the Unicorn, the balance between satire, humour, gore, and whimsy might have been better served. Not Bigfoot though (as namechecked by one character), as that’s been done to death now (no pun intended). As such though, whilst the reference to the (real) Unicorn Tapestries is quite intriguing, the whole shtick of cosmological visions, unexplained aurora borealis, and slightly sappy be-good-to-be-rewarded morality just seems to stick out against the exploitation elements and eat-the-rich sentiments. The ambiguous qualities of the mythology (Does the Unicorn come from another dimension? What does the horn-sniffer experience? What happens after the closing shot?) are annoying rather than clever.

 

This is probably why the film hasn’t hit the cinema consciousness in the way that other A24 films have done. It’s more “Opus” than “Talk to Me” or “Hereditary”. Another sticking point is the SFX. Whilst the Unicorn looks acceptable in nighttime rampages (of which there are a lot), in daylight the CGI is a little goofy and looks like it’s been cut and pasted from a Roger Corman exploitationer or a kid’s movie. As a whole, the movie is not terrible, just uneven and a little disappointing, especially given the pedigree of the cast. The gratuitous gore almost saves it, but it feels bolted on and a slightly cynical way to up the ante. A shame as the current state of avarice and greed on a global scale makes some of the messages seem more relevant than ever (“You’re going to strip-mine a unicorn?!”). Consider it “corny” rather than “horny”.