Death of a Unicorn
Death of a Unicorn
A weekend retreat has deadly consequences when a father (Paul Rudd) and daughter (Jenna Ortega) accidentally hit and kill a unicorn while en route to find his billionaire boss seeks to exploit the creature's miraculous curative properties.
RipLinesMan reviewedApril 20, 2025
Death of a Unicorn (2025) and Event Horizon (1997) both strand their characters in places that twist logic and morality — one in a corporate wilderness tinged with dark fantasy, the other in the endless void of deep space. Paul Rudd plays it straight, offering a grounded performance as a father forced into damage control when a unicorn-shaped secret starts spiraling out of control. Meanwhile, Laurence Fishburne’s Captain Miller leads with gravity in Event Horizon, trying to hold his crew together as their sanity dissolves.
Jenna Ortega brings sharpness and skepticism to her role, serving as the audience’s anchor in Unicorn’s stranger moments. But the script around her often drifts into quirk for quirk’s sake. In contrast, Sam Neill’s performance as Dr. Weir in Event Horizon is pure descent — unsettling and fully committed, pulling the film deeper into psychological horror.
Where Event Horizon embraces its madness with full commitment, Death of a Unicorn seems unsure whether to lean into satire, horror, or allegory. It raises fascinating questions but doesn’t dig deep enough. Both films walk into the unknown — one loses its way, the other loses its mind. Only one feels like it meant to.