Horror humor is having a moment, thanks to folks like Hugh Grant and Demi Moore.
But if Paul Rudd can’t quite make Ant-Man work, what makes anyone think he can gallop in this field?
In “Death of a Unicorn,” a new entry in the frightening-but-funny category, he’s a lawyer who takes his daughter (Jenna Ortega) to a billionaire’s “lodge” to get him to sign some papers. Apparently, the pharmaceutical baron Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) is at death’s door and wants to make sure business will continue after he’s gone.
Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega happen onto trouble while visiting a rich client in "Death of A Unicorn."
Along the way, however, the visitors strike an animal, discover it’s a unicorn and put it in their trunk. Quickly, they realize its horn has magical powers and can cure Leopold of his cancer. Instead of rejoicing at the turn of events, he and his family (deadbeat son Shepard and wife Belinda) are more interested in harnessing the power for money, not good. When angry unicorns come knocking, the Leopolds see it as a harvest opportunity and, soon, the guns come out.
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What they don’t realize is the unicorns are just trying to recover their young relative. The hunters, then, become the hunted and plenty of nonsense transpires.
While writer/director Alex Scharfman tries to point out the narrowmindedness of the one percent, he doesn’t quite dig in enough to truly skewer them.
Will Poulter, as the shorts-wearing, liquor-swilling son comes close (he seems as clueless as members of another recognizable family), but it’s Tea Leoni as Belinda who finds the right way to jab. She has this clueless way of positioning the situation that reminds plenty of the predicament America is now in. She plays empathetic even though she knows she’s not.
Grant sees dollar signs instead of potential.
Finding a unicorn would seem like a cause for celebration, until others discover what they want to do with it in "Death of a Unicorn."
And then there’s Rudd and Ortega. They’re like tourists, dropping in on a world that’s hardly a theme park.
The unicorns get feisty, too, but their attacks simply up the body count, not the victims’ consciences.
Mildly amusing, “Death of a Unicorn” doesn’t have the kind of special effects that could really sell this as an analogy.
Rudd tries. Ortega doesn’t. Only Anthony Carrigan as the butler manages to serve what Scharfman is selling. Considering Rudd prides himself on lampooning folks from all walks of life, that's unfortunate.
Had this done well, we could have anticipated "Children of the Unicorn."
