Horns [R]

Life for Ig Perrish has become a bit of a nightmare since his entire hometown blames him for the mysterious death of his girlfriend. Resentful and tormented every waking hour, Ig soon finds himself in an absolute crisis of faith in a God-fearing town. Soon the nightmare takes a further downward turn when he awakes one morning to discover strange horns sprouting form his temples. He soon discovers that the horns have the power to make anyone in his presence confess their sins and he determines to use them to find his girlfriend’s real killer. 

This was a pretty intense fucking flick! Definitely not for the fainthearted! A biblical-themed whodunit murder mystery that blends the religious supernatural with elements of the detective thriller (though not really in the looking for analytical clues sense), Horns is a bit of a violation of a number of things and I’m not entirely sure whether I liked it or not. It definitely made an impression and provided a memorable and emotive viewing experience, because it’s a movie that’s playing with fiery taboo subjects as well as the darker side of humanity, obsession, and love, all with a very heavy-handed biblical covering. 

Life for Ig Perrish has become a bit of a nightmare since his entire hometown blames him for the mysterious death of his girlfriend. Resentful and tormented every waking hour, Ig soon finds himself in an absolute crisis of faith in a God-fearing town. Soon the nightmare takes a further downward turn when he awakes one morning to discover strange horns sprouting form his temples. He soon discovers that the horns have the power to make anyone in his presence confess their sins and he determines to use them to find his girlfriend’s real killer. 

I first want to say fair play to Daniel Radcliffe for branching out. Granted, Harry Potter is not like a High School Musical story for Zac Efron in that it’s hard to type cast Daniel because Harry Potter covered so many cinematic bases. But what I really liked about Daniel’s performance here is how he really was playing dual roles. On the one hand, he’s the accused innocent who is out to prove that he did not commit murder by finding the real killer. On the other hand, he’s a real troubled antihero, actually quite close to being a villain in his own right because even though his actions play on that adage ‘an eye for an eye’ with regards to judgement and punishment, some of the ethical decisions he makes and the actions that he takes are pretty horrifying. Daniel conducts himself very well in this movie, though it has to be said that performances sort of take a backseat to the subject matter, the bizarreness of the story, and the game that gets played of ‘how squeamish can we make our audience?’ I reiterate, this movie is not, definitely NOT for the fainthearted! 

The story itself is pretty exciting, a nice fusion of genres as I mentioned before, though I have to admit that the you can sort of pick the true culprit from the various flashbacks that are used to build up the characters as well as back story. The horns forcing people to confess their sins was a nice idea, but it translated onto film as a means of jamming as many unsavoury thoughts and taboo subjects as possible into the mix, most of which were starkly contrasting to the characters confessing them: e.g. a mother confessing how she wants nothing more than to kick her child up the arse. The narrative arc ascends during the flashbacks and causes us to get a bit ahead of ourselves in making conclusions about the real killer as well as various relationships between other characters and I’m still in two minds as to whether this was a nifty little script technique or if it sort of diffused too much of the mystery too soon. I guess anyone brave enough to sit down and watch the movie can be the judge of that. 

The lighting and shot compositions were pretty stand out and the tricks and effects used to create all the gore and supernatural elements were pretty special. The gore definitely, along with the horrifying sound effects that went with it will stay with you. 

Starring Max Minghella, Joe Anderson, Juno Temple. Kelli Garner, James Remar, Kathleen Quinlan, David Morse, Michael Adamthwaite, Nels Lennarson, Don Thompson, Jay Brazeau, Alex Zahara, Kendra Anderson, and Heather Graham, Horns is a pretty full-on and intense movie packed with action, mystery, murder, violence, suspense, and drama. It’s a film that will definitely leave an impression, but wether that be good or bad is a matter for the watcher. Me myself, I don’t think this will make it into the collection indeed I don’t think I could actually brave to watch it again, but it’s definitely a movie that hacks its way into your head!