Comedy horror film has always been a staple in horror subgenres, going back to the early days of cinema with “The Dancing Pig” (1907) that made viewers laugh uncomfortably, to the 21st century’s “Jennifer’s Body” (2009), whose characters were so over the top you can’t help but laugh at them. This horror trope has continued to today with an unfortunate trend: they aren’t that funny or scary. Unfortunately, 2025’s “Death of a Unicorn” continues this trend of cheap laughs and uncreative jumpscares that will make viewers roll their eyes.
Many recent films like “The Monkey” (2025) and “Cocaine Bear” (2023) have used tropes and cliches for laughs that ultimately result in absent and uncomfortable silences. For example, in “Cocaine Bear,” the young boy with the southern accent is supposed to be funny just because of his accent.
Taking the position of a Generation Z stereotype is Ridley (Jenna Ortega), who has dyed hair, is sarcastic and somewhat emo and even vapes (a punchline used multiple times in the movie as thin as the vapor coming out of her mouth).
Ridley and her father, Elliot (Paul Rudd), are spending a weekend in the mountain home of the Leopolds, who are planning on making Elliot a partner in their pharmaceutical company. The first 15 minutes include the drive up to the estate when they suddenly hit something in the road.
The camera zooms into the speedometer and the beautiful leather upholstery, followed by Elliot moving his Volvo’s power side view mirrors in where he sees a unicorn. In fact, the whole first 15 minutes with the car driving around the gorgeous mountain side is a phony and obvious Volvo commercial.
After they put the limp unicorn in the trunk of their car and get to the home to meet the Leopolds –— Odell (Richard E. Grant), his wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) and their son Shepard (Will Poulter) –— with the help of some real scientists they conclude that the unicorn can heal major medical issues and decide that the discovery can be a financial endeavor if they find more of these magical creatures. This section of the movie is filled with jokes at their expense, showcasing their greed in extremely unfunny jokes that are led with silence, seemingly for the audience to laugh, but instead, it’s just a strange and unnatural pause between interactions.
The film continues with the unicorns hunting the characters, which is pretty fun to watch.
While there is an unnerving feeling of something being awry, the tension is constantly cut with uninspired humor. When Ridley sneaks up on the butler with his earbuds in he responds with “podcast,” for being startled, a recurring style of joke in these films that is simply saying, “This is a reference to something that is popular in the zeitgeist at this moment, isn’t that funny?!” when really it’s just an empty statement poking fun without substance that adds nothing to the film except maybe a groan from the audience.
Although this film is rarely scary, other than generic jumpscares, and even frustrating in its comedy, there are some original bits in the film. When Ridley first touches the horn, she is shown a kaleidoscopic view of the universe akin to an intense DMT trip, which is a beautiful use of visual effects. Additionally, in one of the rare funny bits of the film, Shepard takes some of the filed unicorn horn dust and snorts a line, which ends up with the same trippy imagery in his eyes, followed by him pompously acting like he has all the answers to the universe and their problems.
It is satisfying to watch these cavalier and highfalutin characters get picked off one by one in graphic and extreme ways one would expect from a unicorn seeing red. “Death of a Unicorn” was filled with opportunities for more creative jokes and scares at the expense of the mega-rich, but instead, it continues the same banal storytelling we’ve seen from many comedy horror films from years prior.
