Death of a Unicorn, a monster flick in which two enraged, predatory unicorns chomp and stomp through a mansion’s worth of exploitative, rich assholes, seems as far as possible from the classic vibe of unicorns as fragile, rare, gently magical creatures. It’s equally as far from the more contemporary My Little Pony-clutching Horse Girl vibe around unicorn-associated concepts: sparkles, rainbows, and friendship.
But in practice, the movie retains an emotional and thematic core meant to delight almost any longtime enthusiast for the mythical beast, and writer-director Alex Scharfman even fits in some psychedelic rainbow moments. That sets Unicorn apart from many of its contemporaries in the realm of genre subversions — films that slap, say, Regency romance and zombies together, or slasher films and public domain children’s media. When Polygon spoke to Scharfman, he made it clear that his goal went beyond just making a strange juxtaposition.
“It was really important to me that we didn’t do a cynical movie. That is, a monster movie where the monster happens to be a unicorn,” Scharfman told Polygon over video chat. “It was really important to me that the movie felt true to unicorns, both in terms of their lore, but also in terms of the emotional valence that they carry.”
Image: A24/Everett Collection
In Death of a Unicorn, two unicorn parents rampage through a remote mansion, seeking to rescue and avenge their foal after father/daughter duo Elliot and Ridley (Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega) accidentally hit it with their car. The emotional throughline comes from Elliot and Ridley’s relationship and the connection Ridley forms with the monstrous equines, in the same way that unicorn mythology describes the connection between a unicorn and a pure-hearted (or virginal) maiden.
Scharfman’s dedication to that setup — Elliot and Ridley as the heroes, and the ruthlessly capitalistic Leopolds as villains — was mystifying to some producers when he was pitching the movie. “There were definitely people who at some points were like, ‘Oh, why are you dealing with any of this emotional stuff, or any of this satire stuff? What if it’s just four buddies on a hunting trip, and they kill a unicorn?’ And I was always like, ‘That’s not a unicorn movie, then. That’s a movie with a unicorn in it, but it’s not about a unicorn.’”
In the chicken and the egg of it all, Scharfman says, the idea of a movie about people who accidentally kill a unicorn came first, and the horror element arrived second.
“I didn’t really know what to do with the story,” Scharfman recalled, “and then somewhere in the middle of telling the story to my friend, I just blurted out And then a bunch more unicorns show up and they kill everybody! I’d never had the thought before, and it was only in the moment of saying it to my friend that I realized, Oh, wow, this is a way in to do a creature feature.”
Image: A24
The creature-feature genre, as Scharfman has noted, often comes with significant anti-capitalist subtext, in movies from Alien to Jaws to Jurassic Park. And that brought the theme right back around to his original unicorn idea.
“I think to truly [make a unicorn movie], you need to engage with — sure, the lore — but the emotional weight that they carry for people, the sense of their symbolism. In a way that speaks to what they are, but also… I don’t know why they’ve resonated with humans over two millennia. If they were just these monsters in the woods, we wouldn’t have these emotional associations with them, that they’re symbolic of something that we can’t attain. They’re symbolic of our own corruption. They’re symbolic of the thing that to our great shame we destroy as a society. And I think that speaks to all of us.”
Respecting the “emotional valence” of an idea that has endured for thousands of years wasn’t just about accuracy to Scharfman, or living up to an audience’s expectations: It was about using existing and powerful symbolism.
“It’s funny, because in some of these conversations, people are like, ‘I didn’t know unicorns had to do with class commentary or socialist commentary,’” Scharfman laughed. “And like, well, hell yeah, they do. They always did. That’s the point.”
Death of a Unicorn is out in theaters this Friday, March 28.
