Unfortunately, this never became the glorious B-movie its premise promises, a monster movie with ghastly gore that also satirizes the rich business elites. Death of a Unicorn has enough appealing elements, from the father/daughter relationship between Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega, to some ridiculous gore and kills, to impressive creature prosthetics to bring the unicorn to life (and death). The setup has Rudd and Ortega run over a unicorn in a secluded nature reserve on their way to meet dad’s boss. They discover the unicorn blood can be miraculously healing, which is a fortuitous discovery considering Rudd’s boss runs a pharmaceutical company. You can see where this goes, especially when you learn that there are more unicorns out there and they are not happy. It becomes a wily creature feature from there, with unicorns picking off the characters one-by-one as they try and escape. The satirical broadsides are a bit too broad, thus only really glancing in their pointed attacks that the people in charge of medical care are themselves venal and selfish. Got it. Much of the humor is related directly to the absurdity of watching a unicorn as a blood-thirsty monster. If you replaced the unicorn with, say, a yeti, would the situation still be amusing? Maybe, but I seriously doubt it. Death of a Unicorn could have been a little scarier, funnier, even freakier, and maybe carried through on the courage of its convictions.

Nate’s Grade: C+