“Death of a Unicorn” begins with an utterly outrageous story premise which will instantly draw your attention: what if a certain mythical creature actually exist? I was a bit disappointed to see that the overall result is rather uneven and clumsy as trying to balance itself between drama, horror, and satire, but I was entertained to some degree even though I observed the story and characters from the distance instead of embracing its wacky aspects.  

The movie begins with the arrival of a recently widowed lawyer named Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his teenaged-daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) in some remote rural region. They are going to spend a weekend with Elliot’s employer, but Elliot is so occupied with how to present himself well that he does not seem to notice how unenthusiastic his daughter is about spending their supposedly special weekend.

And Elliot’s employer turns out to be extremely wealthy to say the least. Although he is quite ill at present, Odell (Richard E. Grant) and his family are the owners of some big pharmaceutical company, and they reside in a big, luxurious house located in the middle of a vast private wildlife reservation area incidentally owned by them.

Not long after Elliot drives his car into this wildlife reservation area, something quite unexpected occurs. His car hits some big animal by accident while he drives along the road to Odell’s house, and both he and Ridley are caught off guard by what seems to be dying on the road right in front of them. Mainly because he really needs to see his boss right now, Elliot decides to take care of this messy situation as quickly as possible, and Ridley certainly does not feel good about that.

Needless to say, they soon get themselves into more trouble after they eventually arrive at Odell’s house. While Elliot wants to leave as soon as possible, Odell adamantly insists that Elliot should stay longer, just because he wants to know whether Elliot is really dependable enough to represent Odell’s company. Needless to say, this makes both Elliot and Ridley all the more uncomfortable, but Elliot cannot possibly say no to his rich boss to his daughter’s growing frustration.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that Odell and his family eventually find out what Elliot is frantically trying to hide from them, but I will let you see for yourself how greedy and selfish they can be once they come across another opportunity for more power and wealth. Just like many of recent comedy films out there, the screenplay by director/writer/co-producer Alex Scarfman, who incidentally makes a feature film debut here in this film, does not pull any punch in its broadly comic depiction of Odell and his very superficial family members, and you will certainly despise them more while having some dark amusement from their sheer banality.

As her father has no choice but to follow whatever his employer orders, Ridley tries to understand what is really going on around her and others, and what she discovers via a bit of online search is not a good news at all. It looks like there is the only one way to prevent an imminent peril to come, but, of course, her dire warning is dismissed by Odell and his family as well as her father, and the mood becomes more tense with several ominous signs to notice.

Yes, what Ridley and her father encountered at the beginning of the story is a unicorn, but those unicorns in the film are not so cute and graceful at all. As a matter of fact, their teeth are as sharp as their horns, and they can be pretty nasty and aggressive as shown from several violently gruesome moments during the second half of the movie.  

As its several main characters are helplessly stuck inside Odell’s house, the movie naturally follows the footsteps of many other monster flicks such as “Jurassic Park” (1993). While it is quite apparent to us that which character will be killed or maimed by those unicorns in the end, the movie has some naughty fun from how some of its main characters are eliminated in one way or another, and I will not deny that I was amused a bit when one certain character comes to have a rather gory demise at one point later in the story.

However, I also did not care that much about the story and characters. Besides Elliot and Ridley, many of the other main characters in the movie remain more or less than caricatures to be skewered, and the drama between Elliot and Ridley is mostly half-baked, instead of functioning as an emotional anchor we can hold onto amidst a lot of carnage surrounding them.      

Nevertheless, the game efforts of the main cast members support the film to some degree. While Paul Rudd and Jenny Ortega are believable in the frequent miscommunication between their characters, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, and Richard E. Grant are suitably obnoxious as required by their detestable characters, and Poulter is particularly effective when he willingly throws himself into the sheer folly and madness of his character.      

In conclusion, “The Death of a Unicorn” is not entirely successful in its wild genre mix. I still think it could handle its story premise with more coherence and competence, but I was not that bored during my viewing, so I will not stop you from watching it if you have some spare time and simply want to have some dumb fun.