Movie Review: Death of a Unicorn

Death of a Unicorn is a 2025 horror comedy directed and written by Alex Scharfman. For the good I really have to give the movie high marks for originality, Alex pulls from the oldest unicorn lore and even uses the famous Unicorn Tapestries. This being the idea that unicorns are happy, magical creatures that are friendly and having rainbow manes and tails. Well that’s not the lore at all and much like the new Nosferatu film, this movie goes in for the deadly and disturbing nature of the unicorn.

The tapestry reveals that these are powerful and dangerous immortal beings, but they were hunted, killed and captured for the magical properties of their blood and horns. This comes into play as the plot device that moves all the pieces as Paul Rudd is struggling to make a lot of money to support his estranged daughter Jenna Ortega via a vow made to his dying wife. Unfortunately he is the executor of a dying man of riches and importance, while Jenna is very liberal and anti-capitalistic. When Paul accidentally runs over a unicorn and is forced to bring it with them to his benefactor’s mansion it is not only used to cure his terminal condition but the family seeks to monetize it for the wealthy and powerful. The two main conflicts are the unicorn parents seeking to recover their colt while Rudd struggles to provide for his daughter and compromises his morals at every step, driving a deeper wedge between them.

Big marks go to creating a story around a creature that we don’t normally see as a threat, in fact the only time I can recall seeing a unicorn murder someone on screen was in Cabin in the Woods. I really appreciated the mythology they explored here, staying very true to the old legends. Unicorns are powerful and dangerous when wronged but they do possess powers that human would wish to exploit. Their design is great, a nice blend of horse, goat and fanged deer (yep that’s a real thing), but with Clydesdale proportions. There are some nice subtleties like their color shifting from dark to light depending on their emotional state.

Alex does a great job at making them incredibly dangerous and intelligent creatures but a lot of the cgi does not look very good, especially the night scenes weirdly. I was much happier when the close ups allowed for the practical FX unicorns to be on screen. The movement was good but visually my eyes kept telling me this wasn’t real. Its remarkable how many films can’t hold a candle to the first Jurassic Park movie.

Another issue is the characters and their dialogue. While the plot moves along at a good pace the characters are very archetypal but flat. This is not like Tremors, where you have excellently fleshed out characters in a monster movie. Ortega gets annoying quickly with all her college learned ideological stances that ignore reality but Rudd constantly ignores the need of this daughter to be seen and heard in spite of his desire to grow closer to her. When he finally turns, it doesn’t feel real. The same can be said for how quickly Jenna goes from hating on her dad to trying to get his attention.

The wealthy and indulgent Leopoldo family are cartoonishly capitalistic and shift gears into casually evil banality with ease but I did appreciate that despite how they treated everyone else that the actually loved each other and had some heartfelt moments when it all looks grim. Rudd and Ortega are normally so engaging to me but I just couldn’t get behind them which left me rooting for the best character in the film…Griff the Butler. The most sensible and blameless individual in this entire film and I was rooting for him almost from the first. Griff is the kinda guy you WANT to survive. He’s loyal but not stupid, takes orders but offers sage advice, if fearful but brave by practicality. In a lot of ways he is that sensible audience POV that tells you this is a bad idea and it is.

This film is watchable but that’s it.

2 out of 5

Director: Alex Scharfman

Writer: Alex Scharfman

Stars: Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter & more…