‘Death of a Unicorn’: Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega Face Big Pharma in Odd Creature Feature Satire 

Alci Rengifo

There is such a drought of original content at the box office that you want to sigh with relief when approaching the premise of “Death of a Unicorn.” It’s not fibbing with its title. There really is a unicorn in the story that gets killed. Director Alex Scharfman is the latest would-be auteur delivering his directorial feature debut via A24, after being a producer. The concept of his script is a work of millennial gusto. Scharfman wants to critique big pharma and classism, aiming for originality with the use of a fantastical creature. For at least its first half, it works as a rowdy satire firing off good material made better by the excellent cast.

Up a winding road in a lush valley in the Rockies drives Elliot (Paul Rudd) with his teen daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega). The purpose of this road trip is Elliot signing an agreement to be the legal representative of Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), the super rich head of a pharmaceutical company. Suddenly, they hit a baby unicorn. After examining the fantastical animal and touching its horn (which sends you into some kind of internal cosmic illumination), Elliot panics and beats it with a tire iron before putting the body in the car. The idea is to dispose of it later. At a gated estate, father and daughter meet the aging, cancer-stricken patriarch Odell, his wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) and spoiled son Shepard (Will Poulter). But the beast is still alive and starts shaking Elliot’s vehicle. When the greedy Leopolds find out about the unicorn, they see a great opportunity.

As with some of A24’s more sly films, “Death of a Unicorn” is a high-end version of an ‘80s B-movie. With a lesser-known cast and cheaper production values, this is the kind of curiosity you would have discovered by accident at the shelves of some bygone store like Major Video. The first two acts are the best, when everything is performed, written and cut to the hilt. Scharfman’s screenplay is very much on the nose, with little room for subtlety in what it’s conveying. The Leopolds are cartoonish rich villains. Odell speaks in a farcically formal language (“regale us child”). Téa Leoni, who we don’t get enough of in film or television, is a great snob while Will Poulter is having too much fun as an obnoxious rich kid. He lounges too much in the family hot bath, making Elliot clearly uncomfortable. Anthony Carrigan is a brief but memorable presence as Griff, the family butler who is willing to do anything for his masters, until the situation starts getting dicey. 

Pieces of many other movies are then stitched together for a classic plot about humanity’s abuse of anything amazing. Of course big pharma would want to see what it can get out of a magical creature. When the Leopolds learn the seemingly dead unicorn’s horn took away Ridley’s acne and Elliot’s sinus issues, they wonder what else its properties can do. Turns out it could hold the cure for cancer. Rudd and Ortega, both well-paired, then become that recognizable father-daughter duo protecting an animal captive from the villains. They also get an emotive backstory in how they need to bond after suffering the death of Ridley’s mother. Scharfman isn’t aiming for cuteness though with the featured creatures. Ridley does some quick internet research and learns unicorns were not seen as lovable, dreamy animals centuries back. There is a whole unicorn family in the woods near the Lepolds’ estate who soon enough will charge in like cousins of the dinosaurs from “Jurassic Park,” or more accurately, an obscure romp like “Carnosaur.” Before they charge, the Leopolds bring in their lab minions to scrape material off the captured unicorn’s horn.

This is the kind of movie where a character like Shepard will snort unicorn horn dust like coke or the villains literally cackle. The special effects are not aiming to compete with Marvel. The third act, when everything goes off the rails, is when the movie loses its original, odd charm by becoming more of a bloody monster movie. At 1 hour and 48 minutes, it’s not a particularly long movie yet the premise can start feeling like it’s running out of new avenues. You can still chuckle at the absurdity of the violence when the unicorn family gets its revenge with lots of impaling and splattering intestines. When these horsies get angry they will literally chew you to death. It is only later that you start asking some basic questions like, where did the unicorns even come from? With its flaws, in a sea of recycled schlock, at least “Death of a Unicorn” tries to be different while playing with familiar ingredients.

“Death of a Unicorn” releases March 28 in theaters nationwide.