“Death of a Unicorn,” starring Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter and Paul Rudd, among other recognizable names, premiered on March 28, appeasing some trailer watchers and disappointing others.
As the mixed reviews poured in, audiences expecting a ripe slathering of bloody violence and cosmic horror were served up a steaming, overstuffed dish. Children expecting an idyllic, colorful fantasy were in for a scary surprise.
But amid the careful premise, the laughs and the horse-shaped monsters with sharp teeth, tearing scientists and corporate profiteers limb from limb, the script writers decided to shove a bout of social commentary into the middle of this manhandled movie.
While arguably the best segment, some critics dismissed this section as a simple “eat the rich” message. One that was not uninspired but possibly unoriginal in their eyes. However, the conservation themes embedded within the movie were something other than superficial.
Ortega’s character, Ridley, pleads with the rich Leopolds to bring the unicorn’s body back to the wild. And, of course, a kind of divine retribution sets in. These characters, ignorant of her words, ignore the advice.
Among the cancer research, the lab tests and the determination through careful analysis by a great number of scientists that the unicorn is not a horse, there is a steep sense of disregard exuded by the Leopold family that surpasses simply a capitalistic urge.
Despite finding a cure for cancer, the nature of their greed is realistic, expected and generally well-developed. But the character of their disregard for the warnings is somewhat more nuanced than expected.
Every viewer knows that the Leopolds won’t listen until it’s too late and the monsters swarm their mansion, but their deaf ears tune out the voice of Ridley for a potentially more subtle reason than only blind ignorance: her age.
Practically everyone who has watched a movie knows that parents and dubious adults never believe children the first time they see something previously thought to be imaginary or when the child proclaims a warning about the consequences of selfishness.
But Ridley’s a teen, everyone has seen the unicorn and they know it has sharp teeth. Beyond this, they even acknowledge the danger it might pose. For example, Poulter’s character, Shepard Leopold, exits the pool after hearing the unicorn roar in the distance.
So why do the Leopolds not give Ridley the consideration she deserves? Well, firstly, she fails to present her findings in a business-oriented format. But also, they only consider her words without condescension when she appeals in formal, adult-like manners.
Outside of their predisposed presentational space, where she can try to draw their attention to the danger of the unicorns, they largely treat her words with little weight and treat her on the basis of her generation rather than, or superseding, her individuality.
For example, they point out her pimples, ignore her frankly steadfast and iron-straight rationales, fail to name the dead creature and when she recognizes it immediately as a unicorn, they have scientists conduct tissue analyses to verify the certainty of that claim.
It’s hard not to look at these moments in the context of her age and the character demographic Ortega portrays with this character. She is playing a Gen Z high school teenager. She vapes, tucks her knees under her shirt and dyes the ends of her hair red.
Even her father, Elliot, played by Paul Rudd, dismisses many of her concerns and her testimony on the powers of the horn. Instead, he tries to explain how he is brokering his corporate deal for her sake, even when she expresses that doing so is not what she wants.
Ridley is also one of the most three-dimensional characters. The virtues of this portrayal may not find footing in audiences of all ages or generations, but it paints a picture of desperation; it demonstrates a member of Gen Z shouting a warning.
That the warning goes unheard could be put down to sheer greed, but it may also be attributable to the disregard held for people of Ridley’s age, since such voices often make similar claims but then are charged with the sole responsibility for fixing climate change.
As such, the cinematic metaphor lands. Gen Z can’t solve climate change alone. But after the strikingly nuanced depiction of generational prejudiced ignorance, the movie’s scare-fest devolves into an overly rushed and seemingly unfinished conclusion.
The ending unicorn CGI is poor, the character comeuppances don’t hit quite right, and the commentary never comes full circle or rises beyond its inclusive initial depiction.
Comedic moments, like Ortega’s scene of staring at tapestries depicting bloodthirsty unicorns goring feudal figures, accompanied by monotone descriptions of their primal behavior, did provoke laughs in the theater, but the ending may have buried the lede.
My personal sentiments are that it is a perfectly average B horror movie with an interesting premise, but a sloppy and rushed conclusion. It could have been great, but was only middling instead at best.
Gannon can be reached at gannonen1571@uwec.edu.
