“Death of a Unicorn,” the new horror comedy from A24, follows the recent trend of Eat the Rich-themed stories. It is also a satirical look into the lives of the uber-rich. However, instead of showing the working class plotting against them, it shows the ignorant and self-aggrandizing upper class leading to its own demise. It’s the kind of conceit we have seen many times in recent years, whether through Mike White’s “The White Lotus,” Jesse Armstrong’s “Succession,” or Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness.” Still, it manages to bite now and then, mainly because of Will Poulter’s scene-stealing performance as a cocky rich brat. It ultimately ends on a complicated note of catharsis for its central characters. Let’s unpack the same.
Spoilers Ahead
Death of a Unicorn (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Written and directed by Alex Scharfman, “Death of a Unicorn” revolves around a father and a daughter duo who accidentally crash into a unicorn while driving to his boss’ house. They try to hide the accident, but to no avail, which leads them on a terrifying adventure along with the boss’s family.
What happens in ‘Death of a Unicorn’?
“Death of a Unicorn” follows Elliot Kitner (Paul Rudd), a corporate employee, heading to the isolated house of his billionaire boss, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant). Joining him on this weekend retreat in the mountains is his teen daughter, Ridley (Jenna Ortega). Elliot tries his best to fill the emotional gap in Ridley’s life, left by her deceased mother, but fails to do so. Ridley openly criticizes Elliot’s boss and their purely profit-driven business. Still, Elliot remains blindly submissive toward the Leopolds. While en route to the mansion, Elliot accidentally hits a young unicorn.
Ridley walks up to it in awe and touches its horn, which transports her to a magical realm of cosmic visions. Unlike her, Elliot isn’t as concerned about its well-being as he is getting to meet his boss on time, or else, it would affect his job. So, he hits it with a tire iron, shoves it into his car, and drives to the Leopalds’ mansion. He and Ridley try to hide this accident. However, while he pretends that no such thing happened to them, Ridley can’t. She sees her acne magically disappear, while he finds his vision suddenly improved.
Despite their best attempts, the Leopolds find the unicorn and also realize its healing abilities. Ridley hopes to call WWF to take care of the animal, but the Leopolds warn against it. After all, why would they lose an opportunity to profit from this accident? So, they sugarcoat their crooked motives by saying they will honor the animal and by understanding its healing powers, inadvertently help Ridley. They bring in a group of scientists to experiment on it, which includes Dr. Song (Steve Park) and Dr. Bhatia (Sunita Mani).
The Hunter and the Huntee
The scientists use the unicorn’s pulverized horn on Odell to realize that it magically heals his cancer. Based on this single incident, the Leopolds rush to exploit this rare animal for their profit by claiming that they’re nothing but philanthropic. After all, they are curing cancer. What can possibly be wrong with that? Well, Ridley explains it with medieval folklore. The night of the accident, she stumbles upon The Unicorn Tapestries, a series of artworks that follows the scene of the hunt for a unicorn. She mentions that it is a cautionary tale and thinks they should hand over the young unicorn to its family.
The Leopolds ignore Ridley’s warnings and go ahead with their plans, which backfire on them. Dr. Song gets killed by another unicorn (the parent of the foal that gets hit by Elliot’s car), which wreaks havoc around their house. However, it doesn’t attack Ridley, and she senses something inexplicable when she is around it. She believes that after touching the young unicorn’s horn, she got telepathically connected to it, which is why she was spared by its family. Instead of trusting her first-hand experience, Odell wants to experience that himself. So, he heads into the woods to hunt them. Instead, he gets killed, and so does the family’s personal assistant Shaw(Jessica Hynes).
Death of a Unicorn (2025) Movie Ending Explained:
While Odell dies, his son, Shephard (Will Poulter), snorts some of the unicorn horn particles and feels something change within him. He insists Dr. Bhatia cut the horn to gain more from it, even though she hints at its ability to recover or regenerate—something that Ridley also realizes while looking at the art of the unicorn’s resurrection. So, Ridley speaks with butler Griff (Anthony Carrigan), hoping he can bring the family safely back home. However, by then, Odell had already been killed by the parents of the young unicorn that Elliot hit on his way there.
Soon, the unicorns manage to cut the electricity off from their mansion. They can’t even call the cops since their entrance gate is electric. So, the Leopolds expect Griff to sacrifice himself to access the gate’s motor housing to save their lives. He reluctantly opens the gate. Moments later, the unicorns kill Dr. Bhatia for cutting their foal’s horn. Shephard snorts some more of the horn particles, hoping that would help him connect with the unicorns. It heightens his sense of perception, but still, he remains as self-serving as before. So, he can’t use his powers to save his mother, Belinda (Téa Leoni), from a unicorn’s attack.
Do Elliot and Ridley survive the massacre?
As the unicorns tear Belinda apart, Elliot and Ridley have a moment of reconciliation. Elliot apologizes to Ridley for ignoring her advice and opens up about her mother’s loss. He feels that Ridley wants her mother to be with her instead of him. So, he makes a way for her to escape, without letting him hinder her from protecting herself. Soon, the parent unicorns walk over and lie next to her. Even then, Shephard thinks of benefiting from this opportunity. So, he starts tying their legs as Ridley looks helplessly at Elliot.
At that moment, Elliot uses the unicorn’s broken horn to stab Shephard, who stabs him back with his arrow. Elliot dies in Ridley’s arms but gets resurrected by the unicorns’ magical powers. Soon, Griff returns to the mansion with the cops, who see Elliot and Ridley alive with a bunch of dead bodies. So, they arrest the duo for mass murder since they can’t believe their unicorn theory.
As they are driven away in the police car, the unicorns follow them and make it veer off the road. However, moments before doing so, they signal the father-daughter to brace themselves. The ending doesn’t necessarily show Elliot and Ridley surviving the accident, but they likely do, considering their connection with the unicorn. So, they might survive and continue to live a life after all.
What are the Unicorn Tapestries, and how are they connected to A24’s ‘Death of a Unicorn’?
As the film suggests, the Unicorn Tapestries are a series of seven tapestries (a form of textile art) that portray events from the medieval era.
- The Hunters Enter the Woods
- The Unicorn Purifies Water
- The Unicorn Crosses a Stream
- The Unicorn Defends Himself
- The Unicorn Surrenders to a Maiden
- The Hunters Return to the Castle
- The Unicorn Rests in a Garden
Based on this cautionary tale, Ridley understands that they should not hurt the unicorn, but instead hand it over peacefully to its parents. However, the Leopalds do not care about her compassion or the folklore in the slightest, which leads them to a tragic fate. Shortly before dying, Shephard learns a lesson from the tale and reveals it since it doesn’t need his sacrifice. He draws his conclusion from the maiden’s famously incomplete tale and plans to use Ridley to lure the unicorns for his profit. The film offers a spin on this popular interpretation by showing the virtue of kindness that makes the unicorns connect with a kind-hearted and conscientious Ridley and help her not lose her family.
Death of a Unicorn (2025) Movie Themes Analyzed:
Eat the Rich
The film analyses class conflicts mainly through the dynamic between the Kintners and the Leopolds. The Leopolds die in the end due to their excessive pride and narcissism, while the Kintners survive due to their inherent humanity. Until then, Elliot acts merely as a pawn for the Leopolds, hoping his loyalty will help him rise through the ranks. However, it instead makes the Leopolds manipulate him and use him, per their whims. Griff is not too dissimilar to Elliot since he is also forced to do things against his will by those who do not care whether he lives or dies unless and until they survive and thrive.
The Leopolds remain in their own service as they ignore Ridley’s genuine concerns with an eye roll, reducing them to being ‘woke’, without realizing the underlying truth. Shephard looks at this historical lore only as a way to learn how to exploit others, forgetting how the same self-serving notions have led to the demise of those like them. He snorts the powder to ‘connect’ with the unicorns like Ridley, but uses his enhanced powers for personal benefit, not a mutual one. So, while portraying unicorns as unknown hunters, the Leopolds show their predatory qualities. Instead of sustaining peace and harmony, they kill the original inhabitants of the land where they thrive.
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