Directed by:
Alexandre AjaScreenplay:
Keith BuninCinematography:
Frederick ElmesComposer:
RobCast:
Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, James Remar, Kelli Garner, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson, Laine MacNeil, Heather Graham, David Morse, Kathleen Quinlan (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe) is accused of the murder of his girlfriend, Merrin Williams (Juno Temple). After a hard night of drinking, Ig awakens, hungover, to find horns growing out of his head; they have the ability to drive people to confess sins and give in to selfish impulses. Ig decides to use this effective tool to discover the circumstances of his girlfriend's death and to seek revenge by finding the true murderer. (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
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Reviews (10)
I never saw Horns during its premiere, and I was disappointed about that. The idea of exposing a person to brutal social pressure and mental suffering to such an extent that they are unable to bear it in a rational way and unwillingly transform into a supernatural being from another (dark) world was already masterfully portrayed by Bulgakov in "The Master and Margarita." In my opinion, such a concept has great potential, but the director and screenwriter managed to completely squander it through their hard work. In many comments, Daniel Radcliffe's involvement in the main role is discussed. Although his performance is not Oscar-worthy, it didn't bother me, and his presence eventually became one of the few positives that can be said about Horns. Horns could have been many things, ranging from dark fantasy to a horror comedy (let's remember how excellently The Witches of Eastwick turned out). Instead, Alexandre Aja created a didactic morality tale full of sentiment, permeated with religious symbolism, and using the most clichéd genre tropes. I could partially forgive him for that if he hadn't been so literal and pathetic, and if he had been more sophisticated and imaginative. This is a disappointment. Overall impression: 25%.
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Merrin becomes just a shadow of her book counterpart, and not even Juno Temple can save it. Daniel Radcliffe shows that he is a capable actor who is willing to shed his British accent to give everything to the role. He's more than bearable, and even though I initially thought he was a bad choice, I was ultimately satisfied. I was less satisfied with the excessive use of CGI effects and the fact that Alexandre Aja couldn't extract true horror from the book adaptation.
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Horns is a great creative trip that combine hardly combinable genre positions with ease, while even managing to make fun of their sacred clichés (the priest’s advice, gay cops). Alexandre Aja is not just a great horror director, but also a lover of dramatic stories with a romantic dimension who can skillfully juggle our favorite pulp genres. And this is his freshly original and hard to imitate wet dream, in which, by the way, Stephen King will also find something to make him happy.
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Daniel Radcliffe wants to free himself from his fateful character so much that I feel like since the end of the Harry Potter saga, he deliberately only takes roles of characters that are crazy or not quite alright. Good for him. So far, it has paid off without an issue. Horns is a fantasy crime investigation movie that abstractly tells the story of a murder. I admit that without thehorns, it would be a classic crime investigation, but it’s all the more fun with them because I’ve never seen such an idea before. What’s more, it is filmed in such a clever way that there can be no talk of a B-grade movie. I have to say – it really made me happy.
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Horns fails in most respects on issues of story structure, and the film also prompts questions even over such otherwise insignificant details as "What's it about again?" The fault is not with Aja – who does what he can and, above all, what he knows how to do (which is why the highlights of the film are always associated with trashy violence handled in a first-class way). However, in my groping through the screenwriting incoherence and indeed the omnipresent idiocy, I became convinced that the cause of the failure was none other than – colleague Joe Hill forgive me – colleague Joe Hill. He can change his name until he passes out, but even if he were Creole he still couldn't deny his inspiration in Father King. In particular, the setting of the story in a small town with multiple supporting characters, the childhood relationships carried into adulthood, and the satanic rebellion against a commune redolent with the church is straight out of King's opuses Needful Things and It. That being said, Aja, with the consistency of a fifteen-year-old pervert, dutifully waits the entire story for those scenes where you throw your feet back on the table, a mischievous grin appears on your face, your hand dives back into your chips or down the neckline of your companion, and you tell yourself that such a demented perversion hasn't actually come around for quite a while and you're happy.
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