By Alex McPherson
Coasting slightly above mediocrity thanks to delightfully unhinged performances from Will Poulter and Richard E. Grant, director Alex Scharfman’s “Death of a Unicorn” is neither sharp nor poignant enough to leave a lasting mark amid its “Eat the Rich” contemporaries.
Scharfman’s film centers around recently widowed lawyer Elliot (Paul Rudd) and his college-aged daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega). At the beginning of the film, they are en route to an estate owned by the Leopolds, owners of a pharmaceutical empire, in the Canadian Rockies. The family’s ailing patriarch, Odell (Grant), might make Elliot a board member of the company if Elliot plays his cards right.
The relationship between Ridley and Elliot has been strained since the death of Ridley’s mother, with Elliot throwing himself into work at the expense of dealing with his grief. Elliot brings Ridley along as a half-hearted way to reconnect, but he’s really out for financial security. Although the Odells are a vain, nasty bunch, they have boatloads of money.
Elliot and Ridley’s winding, somewhat awkward road trip through the mountains is interrupted, however, when Elliot hits a strange creature with the rental car. Surprise surprise, it turns out to be a unicorn, with purple blood oozing from its flank and a glowing horn.
When they get out of the car to investigate, Ridley touches the horn, which induces a psychedelic, seemingly higher state of being. Ridley’s experience with this dying creature is rudely interrupted by Elliot bludgeoning it with a tire iron, resulting in them both being splattered with its innards. He then loads the corpse into the backseat.
Upon arriving at the Leopolds’ lavish estate, Elliot and Ridley meet up with the frail Odell, his extravagantly dressed wife, Belinda (Téa Leoni), and his son, Shepard (Poulter), a well-sculpted fool covering his inherent cowardice with a veneer of condescending, not-so-slickly deployed bullshit.
They also meet Griff (Anthony Carrigan of “Barry” fame), the Leopolds’ put-upon butler, and their trigger-happy bodyguard Shaw (Jessica Hayes). Ridley, shaken from the encounter with the unicorn, doesn’t greet the Leopolds too warmly. Elliot flat-out ignores Ridley’s concerns to get what he came there for: Odell signing him on as a company partner. His allergies, which were bothering him on the drive up, are mysteriously gone, as is Ridley’s acne, possibly due to the unicorn’s blood.
The previously dead unicorn re-awakens and is promptly put out of its misery again. Once the Leopolds learn of the unicorn’s magical healing abilities, they experiment with the horn to create a serum able to cure any disease — specifically Odell’s cancer, creating another opportunity to become the most powerful company in the world. Ridley argues against messing with the unicorn further and, sure enough, chaos reigns chéz Leopold, with plenty of horny (pun intended) kills to go around.
“Death of a Unicorn” has a lot on its mind – from navigating grief, to environmental exploitation, to the allure of wealth at the expense of personal morality, to the ever-timely idea of not screwing around with things one doesn’t understand. This, plus being a creature feature referencing such cinematic touchstones as “Jurassic Park” and “Alien.”
The issue is that Scharfman’s feature debut doesn’t effectively weave these themes together, resulting in an experience that’s more milquetoast than exciting when viewed in light of recent skewerings of the rich like “The Menu” and even, for better or worse, “Saltburn,” which seasoned its satire with attention-grabbing panache that’s sorely missing here.
The issues mostly stem from Scharfman’s screenplay, which largely fails to make these characters distinctive against what has come before. Elliot – portrayed with an uncharacteristically dull performance from Rudd – is a frustrating figure from the get-go without motivation or agency to “do the right thing” until the story predictably calls for it.
Ridley, too, is disappointingly plain – all the more frustrating since she’s supposed to be the voice of reason and compassion speaking truth to power. Ortega is firmly in her wheelhouse here, but her familiar bag of tricks (recently seen in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” for example) are bleeding together, with “Death of a Unicorn” not giving her much of any new tools to work with.
The supporting players fare better, though, playing more over-the-top characters to match the outlandish premise. Grant is amusingly unhinged as the vain, pompous Odell, and it’s entertaining to watch his evolution (or de-evolution) from being wheelchair-bound to running around like a crazed madman hungry to capitalize on Elliot and Ridley’s discovery.
Poulter is the real cast highlight in “Death of a Unicorn,” though, absolutely nailing the polo-shirt-wearing, rich boy shtick to a T, particularly in the film’s latter half where he becomes a more active, drug-addled participant in the story.
Carrigan delivers much of the film’s comedic highlights through his aggravated facial expressions alone, though Scharfman’s script gives Griff more dialogue than he needs to get the character’s feelings across. Sunita Mani as Dr. Batia, one of the people the Leopolds enlist to experiment on the unicorn, provides pathos as she’s forced to risk her life for her employers.
Unfortunately, the supporting cast cannot save the plain nature of Scharfman’s script, which neglects both the shock factor and depth of characterization to stand out amongst its inspirations. While surely relevant to current times, and bringing to mind obvious comparisons with the Sacklers, “Death of a Unicorn” doesn’t lend much depth to anyone beyond the surface level. This isn’t necessarily an issue in itself, but when the rest of the film relies so heavily on tropes (obviously set-up jump scares, clunkily earnest revelations, a drawn-out climax), the characters’ simplicity is distracting.
The unicorns themselves, aside from a heavy reliance on CGI, are creative and disturbing, at least. The film’s cat-and-mouse chase sequences are helmed well enough, and the gore – when Scharfman is confident enough to linger on it – shows glimmers of what “Death of a Unicorn” could have been if it had cut loose from the confines of conventionality.
Indeed, this isn’t a bad film by any means, but there’s little here that lingers once the end credits roll. It does provide fitful moments of catharsis, however, and that’s especially appreciated in today’s crazy times.
“Death of a Unicorn” is a 2025 horror-fantasy-comedy directed by Alex Scharfman and starring Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Tea Leoni, Richard E. Grant, and Will Poulter. It is rated R for strong violent content, gore, language and some drug use, and the run time is 1 hour, 47 minutes. It opened in theaters on March 28. Alex’s Grade: C..
Alex McPherson is an unabashed pop culture nerd and a member of the St. Louis Film Critics Association.
