DEATH OF A UNICORN

Name: DEATH OF A UNICORN
Item: DEATH OF A UNICORN
Author: Review

"Funny and Inventive, but Flawed"

Family Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

DEATH OF A UNICORN is a comical fantasy with scary horror movie moments. Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega play a father and daughter who get more than they wanted when they travel to rural Alaska for an eccentric job interview. Elliot is a corporate attorney looking for a change of scenery with his college-age daughter, Ridley, after the tragic recent death of Elliot’s wife. Elliott accidentally hits a unicorn with his truck and tries to put the animal out of its misery. They take the carcass with them to Elliot’s job interview with an eccentric family that owns a big pharmaceutical company. Bloody mayhem ensues when the unicorn suddenly comes to life and its parents come looking for revenge.

DEATH OF A UNICORN has laughs, thrills and scares galore, plus a touching familial relationship between the two leads. Writer/Director Alex Scharfman pulls off a cinematic miracle by creating a sharply funny and occasional satire of Big Pharma without going woke. Though the tone is kept comical, DEATH OF A UNICORN is marred by R-rated bloody violence and foul language. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.

Content:

(BB, C, LL, VVV, A, DD, MM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview with a touch of forgiveness and reconciliation (the movie has a redemptive father-daughter relationship), plus the daughter has a noble desire to save animals/unicorns from mass destruction);

Foul Language:

At least 27 obscenities (including at least 14 “f” words), one GD profanity and a few light profanities;

Sex:

No sex;

Nudity:

A man sits and stands shirtless in a hot tub, in a completely non-sexual context;

Violence:

Unicorn is mortally injured by a car, then clubbed to death before reviving and being shot dead again in the head point blank but bloodlessly, three unicorns rampage through a mansion and its grounds, goring and tearing apart numerous villainous humans in a somewhat bloody, slightly disturbing fashion;

Alcohol Use:

Light social drinking in a few scenes;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

A man smokes a marijuana cigarette and later snorts a unicorn’s mystically powerful horn powder like cocaine; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

The villains are comically greedy and cruel to unicorns.

More Detail:

For all those who rightfully complain that Hollywood seems to never have any original ideas anymore, the new horror/comedy/fantasy movie DEATH OF A UNICORN is here to save the day. Propelled by a great comedy cast, led by Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd, who play a father and daughter who get lots more than they bargained for when they travel to rural Alaska for an eccentric job interview. DEATH OF A UNICORN has laughs, thrills and scares galore plus a touching family relationship between the two leads, but the movie has bloody violence and more than 30 obscenities and profanities.

Elliot (Paul Rudd) is a corporate attorney looking for a change of scenery with his college-age daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) after the tragic recent death of Elliot’s wife, Ridley’s mother. He is aiming to be named the top legal advisor and a board member for a Big Pharma company run by eccentric billionaire, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), his wife Belinda (Tea Leoni) and their son Shepard (Will Poulter).

That Leopold family lives in a mansion located deep in a wildlife preservation park. Elliott panics when he gets lost driving there. Worse, he accidentally hits a literal unicorn in the middle of the road. As it lays suffering, Ridley touches its glowing horn and is drawn into incredible psychedelic visions that bond her with the dying creature. However, Elliott clubs the poor creature to death with the intention of putting it out of its misery.

They stuff the unicorn into their SUV and head to the interview. However, when the unicorn dramatically and destructively springs back to life, the Leopold family’s head of security shoots it dead. Hearing that Ridley noted the unicorn’s glowing horn and the amazing visions she felt in bonding with it, Odell Leopold decides to cut off the horn and grind it into powder to see if it can restore his crippled body and aged face to perfection.

When this actually happens, the greedy tycoon finds that there are more unicorns in the wild and is determined to put them down to get more of their powerful properties and dominate health care on the planet. Ridley and Elliot know that Odell’s up to no good and seek a way to save the unicorns. Meanwhile, the original unicorn and its parents go on a vengeful rampage, killing the tycoon and his minions in comically bloody fashion.

DEATH OF A UNICORN, much like the legendary creature for which it’s named, is a one of a kind movie that is too unique to catch on and be seen by mass audiences. Writer/Director Alex Scharfman pulls off a cinematic miracle in creating a sharply funny and occasional satire of Big Pharma without going woke. He also employs tons of impressive CGI on a mere $15 million budget.

DEATH OF A UNICORN has lots of bloody violent mayhem, however, as the unicorns take down their oppressors. The tone is kept comical enough, though, that it’s less horrible onscreen than one might expect. Sadly, the movie also has more than 30 obscenities and profanities. The foul language contributes to the movie’s R rating.

What saves the movie, however, is the touching relationship between Elliot and Ridley as they bond and heal from the loss of their beloved wife and mother. Ultimately, DEATH OF A UNICORN is a truly special and incredibly entertaining movie, but MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for older teenagers and adults because of the movie’s negative content.