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Mythical creatures. Movie stars. And the studio that recently gave the world The Brutalist and Sing Sing. We probably were always going to be at least a little intrigued by Death of a Unicorn, the upcoming dark comedy starring Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd that’s oh, so A24 that it even intentionally misspelled “unicorn” by way of old-timey early modern English when it was first announced. (Its original title was Death of a Unicorne, which might be fitting when one knows the writer-director Alex Scharfman previously worked on Robert Eggers’ The Witch.)
Still, when this morning’s gloriously batshit trailer came around, it revealed that in addition to having just natural buckets of alternative cool kids cred, Death of a Unicorn also pivots on more than the cruel slaughter of these majestic beasts from ye olden times… it is also a horror-ish movie where a unicorn’s horn holds the secrets to curing cancer… just good look getting it when these little ponies are revealed to be absolute man-eaters!
Indeed, with a bemusing use of the classic Beach Boys banger, “Good Vibrations,” Death of a Unicorn features Wednesday’s Ortega opposite America’s new favorite dad, Rudd, as the pair are driving into the woods for a fateful work trip that goes horribly awry after they make roadkill of a unicorn. But faster than you can say “Tommy Boy,” the magic animal proves to be only mostly dead. And by the time they get to the film’s other cast of characters, including Téa Leoni, Richard E. Grant, and Will Poulter—the latter of whom looks to be having absolutely the time of his life mugging for the camera—the creature is revealed to be on the rebound.
After untold bloody hijinks ensue, our quintet of characters have the unwise idea to harness the unicorn’s enchanted properties to cure all sickness and disease… but in reality they might only be inviting themselves to learn what the legendary steed’s digestive track looks like.
Notably, Death of a Unicorn is primarily coming out right now because of last year’s writers and actors strikes. While many studios and streamers chose to let negotiations drag on for months without making a deal with the creatives, A24 cut a separate one which allowed this movie to go into production with SAG members like Ortega and Rudd. And it has all the hallmarks of a skewed, sideways laugher befitting an indie tastemakers who made their name, in part, by producing and/or distributing movies like Spring Breakers and Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Will Death of a Unicorn add itself to that illustrious legacy? We’ll find out soon enough, with the movie scheduled to release sometime next spring. We’re just happy though to have another gonzo-minded movie about the death of unicorns after Ridley Scott made a whole cult classic about it in Legend… although even that movie didn’t have a tagline as punchy as “poke around and find out.”
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