Death of a Unicorn Parent Guide

Elliot (Paul Rudd) has always been focused on his career, and until his wife’s death, he didn’t need to handle all the heavy parenting stuff. Now he does, and he’s struggling to figure it out. Having been summoned to an emergency business conference at the mountain chalet owned by his big-pharma employer, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), Elliot’s decided to bring his daughter, Ridley (Jenna Ortega). Since Odell is also bringing his daughter, Elliot hopes to make it a bonding experience for them.

Ridley is unenthused about being dragged into the middle of nowhere for her father’s business dealings but soon faces bigger problems. On the twisty mountain roads, Elliot hits an animal with his car – and it’s not a deer. Worse, the dead unicorn seems to have healing properties - properties Odell would like to exploit for profit. But ever since they hit the unicorn, Ridley has felt a strange connection to the animal, and something tells her that Odell’s plans aren’t going to be the biggest risk ahead.

Well, I’ve never quite seen a creature feature like this one. Comedy horror continues to be a difficult balance to strike, but Death of a Unicorn stumbles through it more or less okay. Good cast, funny premise, lots of blood – sounds about right. The social satire is certainly on the nose, but that isn’t where most of the comedy comes from. In fact, the social message is there to provide the “horror” for the horror comedy, which certainly feels authentic, but does put a damper on some of the humor. The script could definitely use a little tone-tuning from time to time.

While the film avoids sex and nudity, it does manage to get a little bit of everything else. There’s plenty of gore (and goring, for what it’s worth), the characters are usually drinking or smoking something, and there are about two dozen f-bombs. Nowhere near a record, but still plenty of cussing to be getting on with. And for fans of horror comedy, it’s downright sterile.

The cast is talented and fun to watch, at least, and the pacing clips along at a rate about which I cannot reasonably complain, but I feel like there’s a missed opportunity for the movie to be funnier. It’s deliberately not particularly scary, so the comedy needs to shine a little brighter, and the script just can’t quite pull it off. That said, I still had a decent time with the movie, and if you’re less of a grouchy curmudgeon than I am, I expect you’ll have some fun with this unhinged little roadside misadventure.