Back in October 2023, a top agent stated in a Wrap article that A24 executive Noah Sacco was looking to expand into a mainstream audience, approaching various agencies in search of potential “big IP [intellectual property] projects.”
The thought of A24 going “commercial” may seem bizarre, but it sadly makes sense. Where else could an independent studio go after releasing several Oscar-winning films?
It’s a strategy that has become more apparent since the article’s release. Each year, A24 produces a film that becomes its highest-budgeted yet, dabbling in even more conventional genre films — while smaller-budgeted indie films receive quieter releases and miniscule attention. Yet, A24 has built such a strong reputation that audiences associate its name with the branding of an auteur film director. It was only a matter of time before the studio took advantage of that.
That day has come with “Death of a Unicorn.”
This horror-comedy, the directorial debut of indie film producer Alex Scharfman, appears to sell itself on its attention-grabbing premise alone. Driving through a nature preserve to his employer’s lodge for a crisis management meeting, Eddie (Paul Rudd) and his teenage daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) accidentally hit a mythical unicorn. With a fear of being caught violating park laws, Eddie attempts to kill the creature with a tire iron and stuffs it into his car, much to Ridley’s dismay.
At the lodge, they try their hardest to hide the dying unicorn in the car from Eddie’s boss, big pharma CEO Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), his wife Belinda (Tea Leoni) and their son Shepherd (Will Poulter). After touching its horn, Ridley develops a connection with the unicorn, feeling its pain as its blood clears her acne and restores Eddie’s eyesight. However, this connection makes it harder to forget their bizarre scenario. That is until it attempts to break out of their car, kicking and screaming, where Leopold’s assistant Shaw (Jessica Hynes) shoots it dead.
Now that everyone is aware of the creature and, more importantly, its healing properties, the Leopolds immediately try to capitalize on it. They test its blood to see if it can cure Odell’s late-stage cancer — it does. Knowing their supply is limited, they immediately create a bid among their rich clients to rake in the most money off of it as possible. Within a day, they’ve built a business around the unicorn’s body, just in time for its bigger, more violent parents to come to arrive and take back their baby with no mercy.
What sounds like a fun creature feature full of rich people getting gored by unicorns ends up feeling more stale than it should. Riding the wave of recent class satires like “The Menu,” “Triangle of Sadness”, the “Knives Out” series, “The White Lotus,” “Opus” and “Mickey 17, ” the commentary in “Death of a Unicorn” making fun of the wealthy falls flat in comparison. Note that “Opus” and “Mickey 17” were released just weeks before “Unicorn,” and the former is also an A24 release. Despite the satire around big pharma exploiting something as whimsical as a unicorn, it all feels so tired.
It doesn’t help that as a genre film, it doesn’t have the thrills. It’s paint-by-numbers “Jurassic Park” plot structure — there’s even a silhouette shot of a monstrous unicorn roaring as the characters realize just how truly screwed they are — leaves room for potential tension, only for that established fear to be quickly washed away by flat filmmaking and predictable storytelling.
Everything goes exactly as expected. There’s a moralistic emphasis on the characters’ behavior, with the unredeemable nature of the Leopolds contrasting the altruistic attitude of Ridley — while Eddie remains in the middle as he allows himself to engage with his employer’s excess. The film essentially goes as follows: the bad people experience fitting, horrible deaths while the good-natured or redeemed ones survive with the approval of the violent unicorns. While the film plays around with the mythology of unicorns, including rewriting the origins of “The Unicorn Tapestries” and a lovecraftian element with their horns, the most creative Scharfman gets is in finding the ways rich people can exploit a dead animal.
His blunt storytelling ruins any impact that can come from such a Crichton-esque idea, missing the potential messiness that his script could craft. For example, it’s established that unicorns can be calmed by someone “pure of heart,” yet the film never questions what that means. What does it truly mean to be “pure of heart?” Is that possible within human nature, as seen with how selfish this small sample of people tend to act?
All that Scharfman cares about is using it as a plot point.
That tendency to follow a middle-of-the-road direction ultimately doesn’t work, leaving out any impact or thought-provoking themes in favor of pleasing a brand. “Death of a Unicorn,” despite its original premise and cast filled with A24 veterans, doesn’t feel like an A24 film. It feels like a mainstream studio desperately attempting to make an A24 film.
The elements are all present. The tone and performances are humorous, but never funny. The satire is there, but not provoking. The horror meshes itself in, but isn’t fun or scary.
What “Death of a Unicorn” offers is creative mediocrity.
If this is the direction Sacco wants for A24 — films that pretend to be about “something” while catering to mass audiences and not rocking the boat — then this is a perfect direction to be heading.
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