Death of a Unicorn (2025) – Review

Quick Thoughts:

• Grade – B- 
• Jenna Ortega and Will Poulter steal the show.
• I love a good mood board.
• Paul Rudd has gone full wet noodle
• If you’re looking for something with an edge, the unicorns and their spiraled cones of death might not be for you.

After years of outlining, researching and writing, Director Alex Sharfman has delivered a film that tackles pharmaceutical companies, unicorn lore, parent death, class commentary, and financial anxiety to create a relatively grounded “unicorns murder rich people” satire. Death of a Unicorn works best as a horror comedy with an emotional center, and even though it’s being described as a “satire,” don’t think of it being on the satirical level of American Psycho, The Menu, Sorry to Bother You or Triangle of Sadness. 

The movie opens with a sweet moment on an airplane involving a recently widowed lawyer named Elliot (Paul Rudd) enjoying the fact that his sleeping college-aged daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) is using his shoulder as a pillow. While Ridleys sleeping, Elliot is going over a work presentation that finds its way onto the floor. Instead of asking for help, he bends over to collect the papers and Ridley’s head crashes onto the armrest between their seats – which pretty much explains their relationship. Ridley wants her dad’s attention, and he wants the business files that he dropped on the ground. 

The duo are on the airplane because they are traveling to the sprawling and isolated estate of Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), Elliot’s cancer-ridden boss and pharmaceutical billionaire who wants his family to meet Elliot before he gets too sick to run the company. The plan is for Elliot to become the family lawyer/proxy for Odell’s wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) and his son Shepard (Will Poulter), and they want to meet Elliot before agreeing to the big promotion. While driving to the mansion, the cellphone-obsessed Elliot takes his eyes off the road and plows into the hefty body of a baby unicorn as it’s crossing the road. As the unicorn lies dying, Ridley touches its horn and is mentally transported to a heavenly place, but before she can communicate with a unicorn higher power, Elliot bashes the baby’s head with a tire iron and the duo gets soaked with unicorn blood. Typically, getting splattered with blood isn’t a great thing, but the unicorn blood acts as a healing agent that clears Ridley’s acne and cures Elliot’s allergies. It’s perfectly bad timing, as not only are they visiting titans of the pharmaceutical industry, but the cancer-ridden Odell and his family want to find more unicorns that can be used to save lives (for incredible amounts of money). 

What follows is a bloody romp that features impalements, head stomps, intestine shredding and rich people snorting crushed unicorn horn debris up their noses. What’s interesting is that despite all of the gore and profanity, it’s a laid-back experience that is more comfort food than “eating the rich.”  For an A24 release from the guy who helped produce The Witch, Blow the Man Down (great movie), and Resurrection (holy moly), it’s unexpectedly subdued considering it features pissed-off unicorns impaling scientists who are attempting to sell their body parts for huge profits. 

The Most Valuable Unicorn Killer (MVUK) of the film is Will Poulter and his short shorts which allow him to do his best Paul Mescal impersonation. We’ve seen characters like Shepard before in Ready or Not and Knives Out, but Poulter plays the cocaine-addled bow hunter (who loves a good mood board) in a grounded way that makes everything funnier. Shepard is interesting because he’s insanely rich and he knows that he’s insanely rich – which allows him to not behave like a stereotypical rich jerk (that’s something less rich people do). Shepard is a guy who drinks bloody marys for breakfast and knows his butler Griff (Anthony Carrigan – great) will get him whatever he needs whenever he needs it. He also knows that he is a disappointment to his family, but he gets along well with them and he isn’t a complete liability to their fortune. There isn’t a person on the planet who could say that the Leopolds are likable people, but, it’s interesting, that they like each other and avoid many of the tropes that rich families in films like Ready or Not or Knives Out deal with (E.G. – lots of infighting and pettiness). 

The weakest aspect of Death of a Unicorn is Paul Rudd’s Elliot character. His entire arc is based around him learning that earning heaping amounts of money won’t make his relationship with his daughter any better. Elliot is a one-note character and he’s so ineffectual that he slows down the film whenever he appears. As always Jenna Ortega is excellent and her scenes with the charmingly sarcastic Téa Leoni work well. Also, watching Ortega spar with Poulter over her sh*t board (a bad mood board) is a highlight of the film. Overall, Sharfman’s script is constantly engaging and there are some excellent lines, but because he wedged in so many elements the final product is a bit watered down because of all the plot distribution.