HORNS (2013)

Studio:       RADiUS-TWC
Director:    Alexandre Aja
Writer:       Keith Bunin, Joe Hill
Producer:  Cathy Schulman, Riza Aziz, Joey McFarland, Alexandre Aja
Stars:     Daniel Radcliffe, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson, Juno Temple, Kelli Garner, James Remar, Kathleen Quinlan, Heather Graham, David Morse

Review Score:

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Summary:

Accused of his girlfriend’s murder, a young man inexplicably sprouts horns that compel those in his presence to reveal their darkest desires.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Presumed guilty of the crime by the public, radio DJ Ignatius Perrish becomes a pariah in his hometown of Gideon following the murder of his longtime girlfriend Merrin Williams. Working as Ig’s attorney is his childhood friend Lee Tourneau. Ig is supported by his jazz musician brother Terry, but his parents Derrick and Lydia suspect that their son might be guilty.

Ig spends the night with another childhood friend, Glenna, who works at the Chieftain Pub. In the morning, Ig discovers that he has inexplicably sprouted horns. Glenna is strangely unalarmed by the growths on Ig’s head. Ig notices that Glenna is compelled to reveal her gluttonous desires related to low self-esteem. The same thing happens when Ig goes to the doctor and a patient confesses marital infidelity before fighting with the receptionist. Ig also learns that he can see flashes of someone’s bad behavior through physical touch. The doctor and nurse behave in a similar fashion of overlooking the horns and divulging their secret sins.

Ig remembers his first encounter with Merrin in church as a child. Merrin reflects light off her gold cross pendant in Ig’s direction that Derrick Perrish says is Morse code. After the service, Ig discovers Merrin’s cross pendant left behind in the pew where she sat.

Ig recalls a childhood memory of spending an afternoon at the river lighting cherry bombs with Terry, Lee, Glenna, and Eric, who is nicknamed “Meatbag.” Eric dares Ig to ride naked in a shopping cart down the log ramp leading into the water in exchange for Eric’s last cherry bomb. Ig does it, but becomes trapped underneath floating logs before being rescued by Lee. Later, Lee fixes the cross pendant so that Ig can give it back to Merrin. Ig gives Lee the cherry bomb so that Lee will back off from his own interest in Merrin. Ig and Merrin begin their romance while Lee accidentally blows two fingers off his hand with the cherry bomb. Ig shows Merrin a treehouse in the woods that becomes their hiding spot. Ig confesses that Lee fixed the cross in exchange for the firework, but Merrin admits that she purposely left the pendant for Ig to find.

Ig discovers that Lee cannot see the horns on his head and assumes it is because Lee is too good of a person. During emotional confrontations with his parents, Ig learns that his father had a forensics lab destroyed, thinking that he was destroying evidence proving Ig’s guilt when it actually would have cleared him.

Capitalizing on the madness he inspires in others, Ig initiates a fistfight between news crews competing for an exclusive interview. Ig learns that the chief witness against him is Veronica, a waitress at Eve’s Family Diner who served Ig and Merrin on the night Merrin was killed. Ig then allows bar owner Stan to burn down the Chieftain Pub for the insurance money.

Ig recalls the night at the diner when he planned on proposing to Merrin. When Merrin arrives, she tells Ig that she is moving to Los Angeles and breaking up with him. Merrin allows Ig to assume that she is leaving him for another man. Ig drives away angrily frustrated. The next morning, Ig wakes in his car parked at the river with a hangover. He learns from Eric, now a police officer, that something happened to Merrin.

Ig confronts Veronica at the diner and learns that she is lying about what happened with Merrin so that she can become famous as the star witness at Ig’s trial. Ig then goes to see his brother at The Duke nightclub and learns for the first time that Terry drove away with Merrin after Ig left the diner. Merrin exited the car when they were near the treehouse in the woods. Terry awoke the next morning still in his car with a bloody rock in his hand and no memory of what happened before finding Merrin’s body in the woods.

While telling Lee what he has learned so far, Ig notices that Lee is wearing Merrin’s cross, and realizes that is actually what makes him immune to the horns powers. Lee tells Ig that Merrin gave him the pendant because they were secretly having an affair. Ig then tries asking Merrin’s father Dale about what was really going on with his daughter, but Dale only reaffirms his hatred for Ig.

Ig sees that snakes gather in his presence. He uses the snakes to bite Veronica and deform her face as punishment for her vanity. Ig then distracts a police tail by compelling Eric and his partner to finally indulge in their homosexual interest in one another. Ig also forces his brother to make himself sick with a drug overdose as punishment for not telling anyone about being the first person to discover Merrin’s body.

Merrin’s cross falls from Lee’s neck during a struggle with Ig. Released from the pendant’s protection, Lee is forced to admit that he killed Merrin. Lee confronted Merrin at the treehouse after her fight at the diner with Ig. When Merrin refused Lee’s advances, their struggle led to Lee raping and killing her. Back in the present, Lee restrains Ig inside a car, sets it on fire, and pushes it into the water.

The town comes to believe that Ig committed suicide. Lee claims that he was the only witness, and that Ig confessed his crimes before killing himself.

Deformed from the immolation, Ig pulls himself from the river and goes to see Dale Williams. Realizing that Ig is not Merrin’s murderer, Dale gives Ig a letter that she left for him. Ig then puts on Merrin’s cross and takes a normal human form once again. Ig reads Merrin’s letter in the treehouse and discovers that the true reason she broke up with him was because she had cancer. Merrin did not want Ig to suffer in the same way that her father did when her mother died.

Ig confronts Lee and takes him to the treehouse. Terry and Eric also show up. With the truth exposed, a struggle ensues between the four men. An errant shotgun blast inadvertently takes off Eric’s head. Ig removes Merrin’s cross and transforms into a fallen angel with wings. Lee tries fending off Ig’s attacks, but is ultimately consumed be a snake that crawls down his throat. Terry survives the battle, while Ig willingly succumbs to his fate as a fallen angel.

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Review:

Becoming a pariah in your hometown over a crime you didn’t commit is bad enough.  Waking up one morning to find horns inexplicably growing out of your dome is even worse.  That’s what happens to Ignatius Perrish when Merrin, the love of his life since boyhood, is murdered and Ig suddenly finds himself on the wrong end of the townspeople’s torches and pitchforks.

Ig gains the opportunity to hoist a pitchfork of his own when the unsightly protrusions on his forehead bestow an unusual ability to prompt those in his presence into revealing their darkest desires.  Ig has no idea how or why this unexpected burden has befallen him.  He’d rather be mourning or mounting his legal defense.  Yet whether it is Heaven or Hell lending him a helping hand, Ig now has the means to dig to the mystery’s bottom, even if it means exposing sinful secrets that are better left buried.

Star Daniel Radcliffe is accustomed to having a stigmatic shadow of his own perpetually coloring perceptions.  With “Horns,” Radcliffe ensures that anyone still seeing a lightning bolt instead of gnarled horns has to make a determined effort to resist persuasion from his impassioned performance.  As Ig, bespectacled boy wizards are distant thoughts in the wake of Radcliffe’s embodiment of a casual loner with more misunderstood rebelliousness than meaningful menace.  Ig is the kind of character that would have been played by Edward Furlong were it the mid-nineties, and Radcliffe gives him all the nuance necessary to be concurrently frustrated, frustrating, sympathetic, and sinister.

Hundreds more words could be said about the strength of the supporting cast.  From Heather Graham hamming it up the way she does best as a waitress with stars in her saucer eyes to David Morse delivering a simultaneously subtle and explosive portrayal of Merrin’s grieving father, the casting is superb.

Radcliffe isn’t the only one looking to shake loose a monkey.  Author Joe Hill, upon whose novel Keith Bunin’s screenplay is based, once made an effort to disconnect himself from his famous father, not out of shame, but from a desire to succeed without relying on his birth certificate’s last name.  Indeed, as Hill’s work continues standing on its own independent merits, his parentage grows less relevant as a bullet point on his writer’s bio.  Having said that, a work such as “Horns” makes it nigh impossible to overlook the old adage about the apple not falling far from the family tree.

No matter if Joe Hill would take the comparison as a compliment or as a curse, Stephen King and his fans can rest assured that the terror titan’s storytelling style is safe in the hands of his capable son.  Around practically every corner in Hill’s “Horns” are elements that have been features of King’s work for decades.  David Bowie songs (“Golden Years”), childhood connections (“It”), small town sins (“Needful Things”), and distinctive character names no one actually has in real life are just a few such carried-over characteristics.  With familiar ingredients, Hill still makes the story his own.  And then director Alexandre Aja follows suit.

Together, their visions combine for a multifaceted fable that is equal parts fantasy, romance, action, drama, and horror.  That unique mixture is so uncommon as a complete fairy tale that “Horns” transcends the commonness of its cinematic conventions.

Aja is guilty of padding the scenery with typical tropes like slow-motion sequences set to popular music and a protagonist in the foreground walking away from a fire in the background.  The story, whether the source is Hill’s original text or Bunin’s adaptation, is guilty of wading in occasionally shallow context with its plot developments.  For instance, anyone aching for an explanation as to Ig’s horned affliction will find none forthcoming.  And Merrin’s real killer may as well be depicted with painted red hands upon exposure of the very first clue.

Despite the abrupt introduction of the premise and no justification for it besides simply, “this is what it is,” you get over the lack of detail rather quickly.  The same goes for the absence of revelatory shocks in the whodunit upon realization that all such threads are secondary in prominence to the movie’s real meat.

“Horns” maintains momentum through consistently interesting subtext about redemption, consequence, innocence, compassion, and forgiveness.  Once you move past its surface appeal as Cineplex entertainment, “Horns” has far more to offer on interpretive topics that truly matter as a wickedly inventive take on Shakespearean tragedy melded with crime noir.

Review Score:  90

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