Death Of A Unicorn (2025) Dir: Alex Scharfman

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They should have listened to Ridley. When I saw the trailers for this Alex Scharfman directed A24 horror satire, I thought it looked bombastically weird. I was actually half-tempted to go and see it at the theatre, but ultimately, I decided to leave it until it was available to stream - this was mainly due to its undeniably divisive reviews, which were enough to ward many of us off, I'm sure. Either way, I was still fairly interested in seeing what I would think of this odd-looking creature feature.

I felt a little unimpressed by the film's cinematography. Some of the CGI was not great - there was one particular scene involving someone's head that looked truly awful. I also thought the unicorns didn't look that great, generally speaking. I didn't mind their design, but it was clear to see that the film had a limited budget. With all of that said, I thought that, on the whole, the film didn't look that bad.

The story was a bit of a mess, and took the satirical nature of its content to the nth degree. The writing was just so absurdly on the nose - there was a complete lack of nuance or subtlety of any kind. It worked at points, but the constant barrage of messaging was tiring, even for someone who wasn't against what the film was trying to convey. I liked the character dynamics at play, particularly between the father and daughter protagonists, but I would have loved if the narrative could have been a little more refined.

Jenna Ortega feels like she'll be cast as a teenager into her thirties, but as long as she keeps acting as well as she does, that won't be a problem for me. She was quite easily the most interesting aspect of this film, and was comfortably able to go with the comedic ups and downs, as well as the dramatic ones. If there's one thing you can always seem to count on with Ortega, it's to understand her assignment, and she certainly seemed to on this occasion.

Paul Rudd is a bit of a Hollywood darling at this point of his career. He knows his strengths, and he executes them well. He was a little goofy during parts of the film, but that was as much about the writing as it was his very recognisable comedic delivery. He's very good at being somebody's dad, and that's pretty much what he brought to the table here. It's never going to be touted as one of his best performances, but I liked it.

Of the supporting cast, I think the clear standout was Will Poulter, whose comedic chops are severely underrated. He was hilarious at some points in this film, and, with better writing, could have been even more enjoyable. Richard E. Grant and Téa Leoni are very familiar with comedic roles too, and both brought their own particular blend of that to the film, with moderate success. Of the main cast, they were my least favourites, but I still enjoyed their acting, for the most part.

Overall, despite the many significant issues I talked about above, I actually enjoyed the film a lot more than I thought I would. It was silly, it was poorly written, and it was way too over-the-top, but I had so much fun with all of its absurdity. I won't call it a good film, because it really wasn't, but what I will say is that it more than has its place in cinema, and I can imagine it building up a little bit of a cult following in the next few years.