Ben O'Shea-Death Of A Unicorn: I’m Glad Someone Is Finally Telling The Truth About Unicorns, That They’re Actually Murderous Beasts.

Ben O’Shea was in to review the new movie Death Of A Unicorn which stars Jenny Ortega, Will Poulter & Paul Rudd.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great per flick with Beno. I love Richard E. Grant.
He is the best as a treasure with n and
that's alliloquy, which I had to watch one hundred and
ten times. Yeah, absolute icon. He's fantastic in this. But
you know, I am so glad they made this movie.

(00:21):
For too long we've looked at unicorns as this ultimate
symbol of cuteness and magic and whimsy. Yeah, rainbows, yeah,
my little ponies, all this stuff. Sick of it, I'm
so sick of it. So I'm glad finally someone is
telling the truth about unicorns, that they're actually murderous beasts
that want to evil, that want to evil, and they

(00:44):
want to kill humans in the most brutal fashion exactly,
and they're not afraid. It's not just decoration. What animal
doesn't use the horn to defend itself with the fight,
it's unicorns apparently use it for magic. What the heck?
You can make a wish that doesn't make any sense really,
So first time director Alex Shauffman has made this movie

(01:04):
with the Studio A twenty four, which is is this
indie filmmaking house that is you know, so beloved with
with movie fans around the world. Basically, it's one of
the only studios where if you slap the A twenty
four logo on the poster, people go, I'll go see it.
It doesn't matter. I don't know, I don't know anybody about,
I don't know anybody in it, I don't know any director,
but I'll still go and see it because I trust

(01:25):
A twenty four. That's how kind of prestigious that brand is,
and so they're probably the only studio that could make
this movie with the first time director. It's basically inspired
by medieval tapestries about hunting a unicorn that hang up
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Yep, yeah, yep,
and what happens and all of this kind of stuff

(01:47):
mythology around unicorns. It's so half inspired by that and
half inspired by the Sackler family, who, you know, if
you follow the news, they're the owners of the owners
of Purdue Farmer, who the you know, sort of chief
creators of oxy content, Opioid Crisis, A TV series like
Dope Sick about the Sackler family. So you can kind

(02:10):
of figure out in your brain how those two things
go together. You're basically where this movie is at. So
you've got Paul Rudd and the Great Jenna or Tago
so hot right now. They are a daddy daughter duo,
a little bit estranged after the death of Paul Rudd's
wife in the film at General or Tager's mum, and
they decide to reconnect by going on this work trip

(02:31):
to visit Paul Rudd's employer, basically equivalent of the Sacla family,
the Leopolds, this family who owns a pharmaceutical company, have
this huge mansion out in the woods. So they go
on this road trip. He's got to sign some paperwork
and sort of get a promotion in the company. Along
the way, they pass through this kind of like special
nature reserve that's been set up by the Leopold family,

(02:53):
and he's not paying attention to where he's driving. Hits
an animal. Turns out juvenile unicorn. No, and so you know,
this is a world where no one believes in unicorns.
So it comes as a legitimate shock to the two
that hang on a minute, what the heck is this?
They almost don't want to admit what it is. They're
looking at it, going, oh, is it some sort of growth?
Is it a tumor on this horse's head, and general

(03:15):
Otager's characters like, come on, let's just call a spader
s babe, we know what this is. This is a unicorn,
so they don't know what to do. The animal's kind
of dead, but not before some of its blood is
splattered onto them. They load it up into the back
of the rental suv continue on their journey to the
Leopold's mansion. When they're there, they discover that this road
killer is in the back of the car, but they

(03:37):
quickly realize that hang on a minute. As shocking as
this is, maybe there's an opportunity here because the blood
that's spattered on Paul Rudd and Jenna or Taga seems
to have miraculous healing powers. All of a sudden, Paul's
Rudd's characters sort of, you know, short sightedness is cured,
his allergies are cured, Jenna or Tager's acne is cured.
Richard E. Grant plays the patriarch of the Leopold family,

(03:58):
Odell Leopold. He has terminal cancer. He tries to take
a bit of it. He tries to take a bit
of the you a little bit low and behold he's cured.
No Will Poulter, who is also another ross who's who's
really you know, doing great things at the moment, he
plays the sort of the son of the Leopold family.
He thinks, you know, maybe there's a recreational party drug.

(04:19):
He crushes up a little bit of the horn and
snorts that he has a great time. So they quickly
realize that, you know, every part of the unicorn knows
to tail is you know, potentially this billion dollar pharmaceutical product.
So they truck in some scientists. They start doing experiments.
Everything seems to be going swimmingly. Everyone's going to get
super rich. Just one problem. This juvenile unicorn has a

(04:40):
mummy and daddy unicorn that wants to get revenge on
anybody associated with the death of the of the child
and unicorns in according to this movie, not so cuddly
as you might remember, probably more like something out of Alien.
They are terrified it doesn't happen, and so then from
there it turns into extremely gory movie where everybody in

(05:03):
the film, which includes Tea Leoni she's in it as well, right,
you know, just gets sort of picked off one by
one by these unicorns, and and so you sort of
you know, it gets it gets pretty extreme as the
movie goes on. That part of the film is quite silly.
Richardy Grant very very good, Jenna will take a very
good Will Poulter as kind of the spoil rich Nepo
Baby is amazing. Paul Rudd is not so fantastic in

(05:26):
this film. He's okay, but that that relationship, that dynamic
between him and his daughter played by General Tagers, is
kind of doesn't really make a lot of sense. But
the overall premise of the film is a wild movie.
I would just with school holidays coming up next week,
I would just encourage any parents out there not to
look at this film and Jenna or Tager who is
the star of that Wednesday series, and then ye would

(05:48):
be a good one to take the kids along too. No,
it will traumatize that they will have nightmares. It's the
director really, you know, wears his influences on his sleeve.
There's a tip of the cap to Rassic Park, to
the Alien franchise, to lots of these, to lots of
these creature feature movies. I thought it was in Jurassic
very very much so very much so with some just

(06:09):
maybe wrong. Was Will Poulter. Wasn't he the young guy
in Dope Sick? Yeah he was. Yeah, so you so
you've got you know, you've got some interesting references in there,
but unfortunately Death of the Unicorn doesn't completely live up
to some of those references. It's not a Jurassic Park,
it's not an alien but it's a fun idea. Hey, look,
I'm glad somebody made it. Who writes this stuff? It's amazing?

(06:30):
All right, Well, how many ripped them and new ones?
Because I'm guessing, I'm just guessing. How are you giving
a Yeah, Well, I'm just glad you didn't do anything
horn re lated to give it. I'm going to give
a three three all right, thank you, Ben, See you guys,