'Death of a Unicorn' (2025): Review
If you go down to the woods today, you're gonna find some pissed off unicorns going full Mama and Papa Bear...
Unicorns have almost always been the sacred cows of fantasy; they’re beautiful, wise and graceful but, as we’ve seen monsters like mermaids slowly transition to alien, dangerous creatures in media like the TV series Siren or Mira Grant’s Rolling in the Deep and Into the Drowning Deep, it’s no surprise unicorns were next on the metaphorical chopping block.
Take a gander, for example, this trailer from A24:
A24 is one of my recent favourite production companies; I came for Midsommar, I stayed for Everything Everywhere All At Once, and I revelled in The VVitch, Nosferatu, The Heretic and Civil War.
So if A24 releases a new film, I will go see it.
The set up is simple, our father/daughter pair of Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd, playing Ridley and Elliot, are on the way to Elliot’s boss’ place when they hit … something. A horse with a ‘protusion’; also it’s clearly a foal rather than a full-sized creature.
After Ridley has a vision of a cosmic realm and Elliot blungeons the creature, they continue on their Leopold estate only to discover the foal isn’t completely dead… until it gets shot and is most definitely now a corpse.
Except it’s not going to stay dead…
What follows is disbelief and then horror as the foal’s parents turn up and to say they are pissed is like suggesting unicorns are innocent pacifists. The parent goes rabid on their arses, murdering anyone who gets in their way.
The unicorns are very CGI but that actually works for the schlocky horror of the film. I also really like the focus on the Unicorn Tapestries, as well as the fake additions to the set which show the unicorn being particularly violent, heralding the upcoming stabbings, disembowelments, head crushing and noshing on body parts.
Ridley and Elliot are an interesting pair; trying to reforge their relationship after Ridley’s mother’s death. Elliot is also trying to earn all the money he can in order to fulfil his promise to always provide for Ridley and this is partly how the whole set up falls into place.
The Leopalds are textbook billionaires with a facade of philanthropists which hides oligarchy. Odell (Richard E. Grant), the seemingly benevolent patriarch, is dying of cancer and as asked the pair to come to their lodge in order to sign paperwork which will help make Elliot their lawyer and, as it’s later revealed, their scapegoat.
After Odell gets a new lease on life from a unicorn blood IV which cures his cancer, the mask comes off and the entire family: including his wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) and their son Shepard (Will Poulter), a playboy type who seems to spend his entire time faking it until he gets his parent’s respect, from archery to research whilst also hiding an addiction to alcohol and other substances.
Yes, he does explore ways to get high off of a unicorn. Put simply; he’s a dick, but the scary kind because his wealth has made him untouchable. Brilliantly played too.
After the unicorn is discovered, the Odells’ masks begin to slip, especially when they get wind of what the unicorns can do and for whom (aka the super-rich) and Elliot quickly gets caught up in their tidal pull while Ridley has to try and figure out why she is dreaming of the unicorn and what the connection between them actually means.
Perhaps the best part for me is that the unicorns were kept secret so when we see the mare first appear, it’s dark and she is beautiful and terrifying. Her horn, which you can buy a lamp of… (A24, I polled several of my friends and none of them though it was a lamp…) is not the delicate spiral seen in art but instead more vicious, more claw-like. The stallion also appears to be much darker than the mare, perhaps a symbol of his fury, but it was hard to tell as we only see the unicorns during the daylight for the last ten minutes of the film, in which they remain beautiful but also a tad terrifying.
This feeds in nicely when the corpses start filing as the beasts—Ridley correctly labels them as ‘divine monsters—begin Slaughterfest 2025 by going for anyone and everyone in the compound. They are brutal, furious and terrifying to witness, especially when they go through the Odells, their scientists and various security mercs.
Spoiler: Except Griff; I adore him; I’m so glad he survives, and in a classic Beetle too!
I also like that they move the narrative from ‘virgin maiden’ to a more realistic ‘pure’ human which suggests that Ridley is special not because she’s chaste or meek but because she has a solid moral compass and a wonder at the world.
By the end of the film, Elliot, previously money-focused and willing to put Ridley’s happiness aside if it means a payday, has rediscovered his relationship with his daughter and also does the right thing, which the unicorns appreciate by returning him to life and granting him the same vision that Ridley saw earlier in the film.
By an act of violence and bloodshed (He kills Shepherd to save Ridley), Elliot becomes a pure-hearted human which is a nice character arc, especially as we see how the unicorn parents react to terrible humans like the Odells, who all died in painful ways at their hooves.
The film ends in both an uplifting but abrupt way, with the unicorns riding out after the pair, now in police custody, and it’s implied the three unicorns crash the vehicle in order to free the pair (I hope the police woman driving is okay!)
This is a romp, it’s funny and dark and violently dark but it’s fun and the kind of horror I personally like. Also unicorns deserve to have their horror arc and these unicorns are beautiful and terrifying for all the right reasons; I especially loved the meta of them being literally celestial creatures who know more about the cosmos than us.
All in all, definitely a film I’m going to see again! A24, more like this please!
Death of a Unicorn is in UK cinemas now.