Death of a Unicorn: A Messy but Effectively Earnest Horror Comedy

Death of the Unicorn is an action comedy horror movie that despite some spotty jokes becomes a great time through its excellent performances and cynical yet earnest writing.

I’m happily surprised to say I liked Death of a Unicorn. I was always faintly excited about this as I didn’t watch much of or pay much attention to the trailers. The concept sounded novel when I first heard about it, so I didn’t want to see any more after reading the initial premise. Initially, I found its satirical humor grating and distracting from its genuinely interesting narrative. Over time, it gets better as the situation gets more dire. Death of the Unicorn is an action comedy horror movie that despite some spotty jokes becomes a great time through its excellent performances and cynical yet earnest writing.

Jenna Ortega is great in Death of a Unicorn, as expected. She still plays a sarcastic, detached teenager, but her character’s involvement in the storyline requires much more than scowling and sarcasm. Ortega has to play a role requiring much more optimism, and she’s up to the challenge. Will Poulter’s performance is also outstanding, and the plot progression through genres requires him to change his approach frequently. Initially, he’s entirely comic relief with a great sense of commitment to every wacky thing the film throws at him. As the story gets more serious, so do his choices, which aid the writing in its often frantic genre blending. The other performances are all pretty good to great with Sunita Mani, Steve Park and Anthony Carrigan all being great in their unfortunately small roles.

The writing is interesting is strong when dealing with unicorn lore and occasionally spotty with humor. Some jokes don’t land as much as they should, and some characters are underutilized. The initial scenes present an earnest father story alongside a satire with fleeting fantasy. The film later progresses into a comedy horror film with lore and set pieces you might expect from an action-adventure movie. The comedy related to the horror works well and made me laugh out loud a few times. The genre-blending and narrative choices the film chooses are tremendous and honestly refreshing, in my opinion. It’s nice to see a movie with such strange and weird genre choices be made on this scale and succeed in pulling off big swings. The story just got better and better as the movie went on. If the film's second half weren’t so strong, I wouldn’t have liked the movie as much.

Death of a Unicorn is a messy but circumstantial ride through the comedy, horror, action-adventure, and fantasy genres due to its committed performances and writing. Jenna Ortega and Will Poulter are great and help keep the film afloat. Will Poulter uses his comedic and dramatic chops to make his character feel fully formed. The writing is spotty regarding humor but strong when developing fantasy elements. I was excited to see Death of a Unicorn simply off the premise, and I’m happy to say it still exceeded my expectations. I recommend you see it for yourself; you might enjoy it.

I'm giving this movie 4 out of 5 stars. Honestly would be a 3.75 if it could be because its much better than a 3.5 anyway. I hope you like this review and the movie if/when you watch it!