Horns (2013)

This movie was recommended to me by a coworker that thought Hereditary and Blade Runner 2049 were bad movies….so yea, expectations were low going in. I had never heard of this movie before, but the opening was cheesy and it has Daniel Radcliffe in it, an actor I couldn’t remember why I didn’t like other than he has an annoying face and a prepubescent beard. About 15 minutes into the movie I remember why I don’t like him, he’s a horrible actor, along with 90% of the cast.

So basically a guy is accused of murdering his girlfriend by the entire small town they grew up in. The only person that believes he didn’t do it is his best friend, who once saved him from drowning when they were kids. He mysteriously grows horns one day and people are compelled to tell him their secrets and true feelings when he’s talking to them. Oh, and he can see their memories just by touching them and make them do whatever he tells them to do, totally not the beginning of a Mary Sue type main character who can beat up anyone despite looking like a living skeleton. He goes on a journey to find the real killer and discovers everyone in this town is secretly a horrible person. He eventually transforms into an actual devil by way of low budget CGI and gets his revenge on the real killer and is reunited with his dead girlfriend in the afterlife, hooray.

I’m guessing this was meant to be a dark comedy with some very obvious symbolism thrown in to try and offset the fact that there is no character development, or any characters that aren’t one dimensional. I’m almost convinced this movie was written and directed by a couple of angst riddled teenagers with some kind of revenge fantasy they had from high school. Ig, the main character, is walking around with a literal pitchfork and snakes around his shoulder at points in this movie, it’s ridiculous. The real killer is painfully obvious from the first flashback scene we’re shown, the whole plot was extremely predictable. Characters that were good people their entire lives suddenly become deranged rapists and murderers that forget forensics are a real thing, despite their job being involved with criminal justice. Others team up with someone they hated and wanted to kill 30 minutes prior, they had a life changing epiphany in the span of 10 seconds when they see something on the news I suppose.

I didn’t think this movie could possibly get any worse by the end, but it does! I wish I could say the concept was cool, but I will admit it could have been interesting. Poor execution, poor acting, poor characters…2/10 is the best I can do. (Word count: 460)