What is a unicorn exactly?
In the Harry Potter franchise, unicorns are pure, gentle creatures with magical silver blood that extends the drinker’s life. In C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, the unicorn Jewel is described as a fierce, loyal Talking Beast who gores his fair share of Calormenes.
In Death of a Unicorn, they’re something in between—and also something more. They’re certainly fantastical but also somehow prehistoric? And they’ve got this weird cosmic, spiritual connection, too.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Because right now, all that Ridley and her dad, Elliot, know is that the unicorn they just found is dead.
Found is perhaps not the right word, though. Technically, Elliot hit the poor thing with his car. Then he hit it in the head with a tire iron … repeatedly.
Ridley is horrified by her dad’s actions. Just before Elliot went to town with the tire iron, Ridley touched the unicorn’s horn, creating a sort of spiritual connection between her and the beast. And she doesn’t know why, but now she’s convinced the best thing they can do is return the unicorn’s body to its home in the woods.
Unfortunately, Elliot doesn’t want to do that. See, they were on a wilderness preserve when he ran the unicorn over, so he’s reasonably worried that there could be legal ramifications for killing it if it’s an endangered animal. He can’t exactly hide it either, since a ranger could find the body and link it back to his car, which got pretty beat up in the accident. And he doesn’t have time to come up with any other plan since he’s on the way to his boss’ mountain chalet to finalize the details of a huge promotion—a trip that can’t be delayed, or he’ll lose his job.
So, the father-daughter duo packs the creature into the back of their vehicle and continues on their way, hoping to find a solution later.
But once they arrive at the sprawling mountain getaway, they learn the unicorn isn’t, in fact, dead.
Oh no, this unicorn is very much alive. And very much not alone. And very much going to kill them.
Ridley and Elliot don’t exactly see eye to eye. Ever since Ridley’s mom died, her dad has poured himself into his job, isolating himself from Ridley. Equally unhelpful is the fact that Ridley really doesn’t like Elliot’s boss, Odell. He runs a big pharmaceutical company and isn’t exactly the most ethical person.
Elliot makes some ethically questionable choices of his own in his eagerness to please his boss. He later tells Ridley that he’s only thinking of her: If he gets this promotion, he’ll be making a lot more money, meaning that Ridley will never want for anything.
And that’s the crux of the problem. When Ridley’s mom died, her dad promised to take care of Ridley, to make sure she never went without. But he went about it the wrong way. And inadvertently, he caused his daughter to go without a mother or a father.
Elliot and Ridley eventually talk about their difficulties connecting. Elliot apologizes, and Ridley forgives her dad for his absence, reassuring him that all she really wants in life is a relationship with him. Ultimately, Elliot risks his life to save Ridley.
Ridley is described as a “virtuous” person. And while she’s not exactly a role model, her actions are certainly more ethical than the greedy Odell’s—or the other members of Odell’s family, for that matter. When they learn that unicorns have magical healing powers (more on that in Spiritual Elements), Ridley is the only one who refuses to hunt them down.
That said, it seems that Odell’s family members do care about each other, even if they don’t care about anyone else.
The unicorns here are magical creatures with healing powers. Leave a unicorn alone long enough, and any wounds it incurred will heal on their own. Splash a bit of its purple, iridescent blood on your face, and it’ll cure anything from acne to nearsightedness and allergies (which is exactly what happens to Ridley and Elliot, respectively). Get enough unicorns together, and they can even bring dead people back to life (which, again, happens).
These powers stem from the unicorn’s horn. In addition to being a powerful weapon, the horns are what link unicorns together telepathically. When Ridley touches one unicorn’s glowing horn, she joins that link. The creature shows her the cosmos, leading her back, she thinks, to the source of life itself. And another young man, after snorting powdered unicorn horn (yes, seriously), seems to have a cosmic vision of his own. He cries out, “Sanctify me,” after snorting more of the stuff.
Ridley describes this mystical, cosmic source as a peaceful place where fears are no more. And she thinks she saw her mom there, waiting for her. Elliot says he hopes this is true and that he’ll go there to join her when he dies.
An aurora in the sky seems to shift with the unicorns’ movement across the wilderness preserve. When they’re near, electrical circuits go haywire. And thunder booms as they approach the chalet.
Ridley learns that unicorns are historically connected to “virtuous maidens.” And the beasts seem to submit to her, since she’s the only person in the film who doesn’t try to use the unicorns (or their byproducts) to her advantage. Several people believe they’ll live forever if they can harvest enough unicorn horn, giving them a bit of a god complex.
Elsewhere in the story, we hear a man say that he’s made peace with his impending death through meditation. He wears special beads often associated with Hinduism or Buddhism. Ridley says that people used to believe unicorns were a metaphor for Christ, and she says the Church commissioned art to “force obedience.”
A man struts around in a swimsuit, sometimes wearing a robe as a coverup. A woman describes a unicorn’s horn in a somewhat sexual manner.
As I already mentioned, Elliot first runs over a unicorn (which we later learn was a baby). Elliot initially grabs the tire iron hoping to put the poor creature out of its misery. He hesitates after realizing what he hit but eventually completes the task after the beast telepathically links to Ridley, putting her in what Elliot thinks is a sort of trance.
Does Elliot go a little overboard in his disposal of the baby unicorn? Yes. Absolutely. The poor creature’s blood covers Elliot and Ridley when he’s done. But it’s nothing compared to what that unicorn’s parents do.
The unicorns depicted here aren’t the fluffy, colorful creatures of My Little Pony. Even The Last Battle’s Jewel, warrior that he was, would be put off by these fearsome beasts. The unicorns sport ape-like muzzles with carnivorous teeth and a dinosaur-esque roar. Weirdly, they have dewclaws behind their hooves, too. And they use each of these features (not to mention the horns themselves) to gouge, disembowel and otherwise dismember their victims.
Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how many people are trampled, kicked, impaled and literally torn limb from limb here. One guy’s head is slowly crushed to a pulp by a unicorn’s hoof as he screams for help. It’s a gruesome sight to behold. Tapestries also depict unicorns committing these atrocities in medieval times.
But who can blame them, the film seems to ask. People attempt to hunt down and capture the unicorns. Even after realizing the beasts can fight back, Odell eats a steak made from the flesh of the baby unicorn. And his family continues to consume its blood and horn, as well. Folks shoot the unicorns, trying to put the beasts down. And one woman shoots a reanimated unicorn point-blank in the head.
A man uses a unicorn’s sawn-off horn to stab another man. Then his victim stabs him back with an arrow. Nearly everyone dies at some point. Odell brags about how he hunted and killed elephants, lions and great apes.
Several people volunteer a man for a life-threatening task. And he’s forced to comply. A car is rammed off the road by several unicorns (though the passengers appear to survive).
A man threatens Ridley with a bow and arrow, using her to control the unicorns so he can tie them up and capture them.
We see an IV needle enter someone’s arm.
We hear more than 20 f-words and nearly 15 s-words. We also hear single uses each of “h—” and the British expletive “bloody.” God’s name is abused six times, once paired with “d–mit.” Ridley labels someone a “fascist.”
Shepard, the son of Elliot’s boss, is a former drug addict, though he still drinks alcohol. When he realizes the healing and psychedelic effects of unicorn parts, he mixes the beast’s blood into a beverage, sharing it with his parents. Later, he snorts powdered unicorn horn, eliciting a cocaine-meets-LSD-like reaction.
Ridley vapes throughout the film, keeping it a secret from her dad.
Ridley believes that Odell is a virtue-signaling megalomaniac, and she tells her dad as much. While she’s a bit rude in her delivery of these opinions, she’s also not wrong. Odell’s wife proudly states that she donated money to help refugees, though she’s unsure if it was to evacuate or vaccinate them. She’s also quite dismissive when Odell mentions their chalet is located on stolen Native American land. Odell’s family brings up other philanthropic ventures, clearing only caring about the good press they bring.
And when Odell’s family realizes the presumed-dead unicorn has healing powers (including the ability to cure cancer), rather than share it with the world, they begin plotting how to monetize it. They hoard some of the unicorn byproduct for themselves (hoping it will allow them to live forever), and then they create a select list of rich clients whom they’ll sell the rest to.
Additionally, after realizing there is more than one unicorn in the wilderness preserve where Odell and his family are staying, they decide to hunt the creatures down and breed them for a never-ending supply of unicorn blood and horns. And when a scientist questions whether she should continue studying the baby unicorn, Odell manipulates her into compliance.
Worth noting: Elliot wouldn’t have hit the unicorn to begin with if he hadn’t been distracted by his phone while driving.
Elliot’s allergies act up on the way to Odell’s chalet. He blows his nose repeatedly, tossing the tissues all over the place and grossing out Ridley.
If you enjoy dark comedies filled with gory deaths, weird spiritual trips and plenty of profanity, then Death of a Unicorn is probably right up your alley. But for parents, it’s a bit of a nightmare.
Unlike more traditional depictions of unicorns, there is nothing light, majestic or pure about this film. Bloodshed is excessive and practically nonstop. People are greedy and cruel. And drug addiction is treated as something to be mimed and mocked.
There’s perhaps a cautionary tale about the hubris of man to be sifted from this gory story. But mostly, Death of a Unicorn seems to want to share this weird, pseudo-religious version of heaven—which, ironically, can only be reached by going on the equivalent of an LSD trip.
So parents, if your kids like the fluffy, white horses with rainbow-colored horns—or if they’re impressionable teens who might be influenced by Ridley’s snarky attitude—keep them as far away as humanly possible from Death of a Unicorn.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
