This is a weird one—not that we’d expect anything else from A24 (The Green Knight, Beau is Afraid). The feature film debut of writer-director Alex Scharfman, Death of a Unicorn is about a father and daughter (Paul Rudd and Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega, pictured above) who have an unexpected encounter with a unicorn on their way to a weekend retreat. Which is to say: They hit it with their car, and it dies.
I already find this very upsetting, concept-wise, but it gets worse, of course: Rudd’s character’s unsavory boss (played by Richard E. Grant) wants to exploit the poor dead thing for its magical curative properties.
Deadline reports that new additions to the cast include Will Poulter (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3), Anthony Carrigan (The Flash), Sunita Mani (Mr. Robot), Téa Leoni (Deep Impact), Jessica Hynes (Shaun of the Dead), and Stephen Park (Asteroid City). The composer for this movie is none other than Halloween director John Carpenter, working with his son Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. (Carpenter is responsible for the Halloween theme, as well as the theme to the series Zoo, among other things.)
Though this is Scharfman’s first feature as writer and director, he’s previously established himself as a producer (Blow the Man Down, Women Who Kill), and Deadline notes he has projects in development with Amblin, Blumhouse, Sony TV, Amazon, and more. So this is hardly his first cinematic rodeo—though it may be the first one with a dead unicorn.
No release date has been announced.
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