Before we begin, I must preface this by saying I am biased against rich people and for unicorns. As in, I wish there were more Luigi Mangiones in the world and also unicorns are such a cool horror vehicle why do we not see them more often?
That being said, Death Of A Unicorn is damn near a perfect film. Perfection isn’t real, but everything in this movie exists to aid the story. This weekend, I also saw The Woman In The Yard, and nothing in that film happened because of the woman. That film would have happened with or without her.
But Death Of A Unicorn only happens because a unicorn dies. No dead unicorn, no story. No dead unicorn, no exploration of greed. No dead unicorn, campy CGI.
If the unicorn doesn’t die, it’s a story about a dying billionaire finding a greedy person to take over his throne.
If there’s no greed, there’s no problem with a dead unicorn. Their greed is why the dead unicorn becomes a problem.
And if there’s no dead unicorn, unicorns being campy creatures, the otherwise subpar CGI would be a problem. But because there’s a dead campy creature (and comedians talking about it), campy CGI works.
Death Of A Unicorn is a great example of everything working together to aid the final story. The theme is so obvious and contemporary, but that theme only happens, again, because there’s a dead unicorn. Everything happens to aid the reality that they killed a unicorn.
But not everything is perfect, and I do wish they used physical fx for the death scenes. This is a comedy-HORROR after all, and horror relies on good fx. I know green screen rigs aren’t cheap… but come on. Those deaths were obviously as cheesy as the unicorns, but in a bad way instead of good.
It should also come as no surprise that Ari Aster helped produce this under his Square Peg outfit.
