HORNS. Directed by Alexandre Aja, with Daniel Radcliffe.
REVIEW: John De Fore
A FABLE-like horror mystery with strong comic and romantic tendencies, Aja's Horns draws on source material by cult scribe Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son), to deliver something much more beguiling than the straighter genre fare that made his name. Radcliffe in the lead should help get audiences past the bizarreness of the premise – a man wrongly accused of killing his girlfriend turns into the Devil, sort of, but the pic's ability not to stumble under its peculiar mix of elements is what makes it worth distributors' time.
Radcliffe is Ig Perrish, who has become a pariah in his community since his girlfriend was found dead in the woods. “What does it feel like to get away with murder?” someone shouts in opening scenes, angry that the local cops can't find the evidence to prosecute him. The movie has him wake up one morning to find horns sprouting -from his temples.
As he tries to remove them, Ig observes that the horns have a strange effect on people: Instead of turning from him in horror, they start over-sharing their dark secrets and impulses. A woman with a shrieking toddler sweetly discusses kicking the child across the room; a doctor offers to share the pain pills he's about to crush up for recreational use.
Realizing he can use his new powers to hunt for the person who actually killed his girlfriend, Merrin (Juno Temple, seen in flashbacks ), he inadvertently learns things he wishes he didn't have to know. His mom, much as she loves him, secretly wishes he'd just go away so she didn't have to defend him; his dad believes deep down that he's the killer. And there's worse to be learned. Only childhood friend Lee (Max Minghella), now a public defender keeping Ig out of jail, seems wholly on his side.
While this all begins as a kind of supernatural black comedy, with plenty of Biblical allusions echoing the Edenic nature of the treehouse where Ig and Merrin spent their happiest hours, the tone grows darker with each revelation. It's a full-grown horror movie in the third act, with Ig commanding an army of serpents and tormenting those whose lies have created the hell he inhabits. Radcliffe takes to this vengeful-demon stuff with relish.
While flashbacks get to tell a straightforward romantic story, only part of the present-tense tale seems untouched by the supernatural: In encounters with Merrin's dad (David Morse), the encounters ground the story, keeping its goofier elements from overshadowing its heart. – Reuters/ Hollywood Reporter