Horns, starring Daniel Radcliffe and the misty Pacific Northwest
A better movie than its Rotten tomatoes score suggests, Horns has more story and characterization than most horror flicks, making it a very enjoyable watch.
Fun fact: my wife suggested we watch this movie. We were browsing the iTunes movie gallery (where it’s available as a VoD) and of all the trailers we watched, Horns caught her eye the most. Having not yet read any of Joe HIll’s works, I’m a big Stephen King fan and was eager to see what this first movie based on Hill’s book was like. Needless to say, I wasn’t disappointed. Horns is an entertaining, bloody, funny movie that shows its influences without being overcome by them and features gorgeous sets, solid acting, and great pacing and characterization.
“I love you” “I love you more” #mushy
In Horns, Daniel Radcliffe plays Ig Perrish, a small-town DJ accused of murdering his childhood sweetheart, Merrin (Juno Temple). Ig is getting help defending himself from his childhood friend Lee (Max Minghella), along with his brother and parents. When the film opens, Merrin is dead and Ig is a mess: everyone in town thinks he killed her. After a drunken night, Ig wakes up with literal devil horns, and at this point the movie shows its humor, as anyone who encounters Ig is filled with the compulsion to act out their innermost thoughts and desires. This part of the movie is the funniest, although it is not the whole movie. Indeed, a good chunk of the film is told in flashback, both of the recent past (just before Merrin’s murder) and the far past, when the film explores how Ig and Merrin first met. While I won’t make too many comparisons between Joe Hill and Stephen King, I will say that Hill has his father’s gift for characterization: both authors excel at making you feel for even the most minor characters. Everybody gets their time to shine in Horns, leading to a complete picture of small-town Pacific Northwest. After the movie is finished, you almost feel like you could walk into the town’s main bar and greet everyone by name (that is, if the owner hadn’t been spurned on by Ig to burn the place down).
Horns is a beautiful movie on several fronts. The Pacific Northwest setting is gorgeous, and there are enough long shots of mist-covered lakes and forests filled with hidden tree houses that by the end of the movie I was nostalgic for my former hometown. Director Axexandre Aja (who previously directed the atmospheric Kiefer Sutherland piece Mirrors and the better-than-expected Hills Have Eyes remake) also comes up with some very pretty shots, from the opening scene to the flashback sequences. If I have any complaint it’s that the CGI at times looks fake, and I doubt the snake scenes especially will hold up over the test of time. But this is a slight gripe; for the most part I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. At the end of it, I was eager for two things: Daniel Radcliffe’s next movie and Joe Hill’s books. I’m curious to pick up a copy of Horns and see how it compares to the movie. Hill apparently loved the movie, so I’d call that a successful adaptation.
tl;drs
Screen credits over/under: Under. Horns is solely credited to Keith Bunin, based on Hill’s novel.
Recommended if you like: Daniel Radcliffe’s exciting post-Harry Potter career; movies set in the Pacific Northweat
Better than I expected: This film has many pretty shots (and I don’t mean just the ones of a shirtless Radcliffe). Horns was filmed in BC and takes full advantage of the area’s natural beauty to make me pay attention to the scenery in a way I haven’t for a long time.
Worse than I hoped: CGI snakes didn’t look good in Snakes on a Plane and they still don’t look good.
Blank would work better as a(n): Novel. Wait; it was a novel. Brb, ordering the novel online.
Verdict: A promising start to Joe Hill movie adaptations, alongside a nice performance by Daniel Radcliffe. And (if your S.O. is like my wife) it’s a great date movie.
