Death of a Unicorn

Writer/director Alex Scharfman's tonally inept, unforgivably tedious "horror comedy" stars Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega as a father and daughter who accidentally hit a unicorn with their car while on their way to a weekend meeting with Rudd's billionaire boss. When the billionaire (Richard E. Grant), his wife (Téa Leoni), and their son (Will Poulter) discover the not-exactly dead beast has mystical healing powers, their greed leads them to make some very bad decisions.

This is one of those movies that demonstrates how even the most gifted comedic actors, as everyone in this cast is, can not make insipid one-note characters funny. Comedy has to come out of some place of truth to resonate, and mugging for the camera is never truthful. Neither are the strawmen caricatures of the shallow rich family and the cravenly pathetic single dad trying to secure a financial future for himself and his daughter. The interminable 107-minute picture consists of repeating the same lame jokes, the same predictable jump-(non)scare, the same shoddy CGI shots, and the same generic sound effects over and over and over. Death of a Unicorn makes Cocaine Bear look like a subtle work of sophisticated wit.