Review of Horns (2013) by Esteban G — 13 Nov 2014

Horns is a dark fantasy - and at times, over-the-top - tale that delves into the darkest corners of the human heart, and it is ultimately a tragic love story in more ****ed up ways than one. It starts off innocently enough, and progressively gets worse with what the narrative brings up, which spans everything from child abuse to rape, and the movie owes it all to - you guessed it - Ig's spanking new horns. The movie barrels through the first twenty minutes with what the audience needs to know, such as Merrin's murder, Ig's involvement, etc. Soon he gets his horns, and learns of the terrible gifts that come with it, which start off with people telling him their messed up thoughts and secrets, and soon his 'powers' grow increasingly demonic in nature. With great power, comes great responsibility, Ig realizes he has been 'blessed' with the horns to find Merrin's true killer(s).

Despite how Alexandre Aja brings Joe Hill's novel to life breathtakingly, something feels missing. Perhaps it was how Keith Bunin's screenplay of Horns chose to focus more on Ig Perrish's relationship with his friends, particularly Lee Tourneau (Max Minghella), a lawyer and childhood friend, rather than Ig's relationship with Merrin, which takes a backseat as the backbone and core premise of Horns instead. Ig and Merrin's tragic love story is instead told through skimmed flashbacks. But as I've said in the past, novels being adapted into movies should be viewed as two separate entities; as such, Alexandre Aja and Keith Bunin's Horns should be viewed as a differing, yet equally good iteration of Joe Hill's Horns; Hill's Horns was a tale that equally balanced Ig and everyone else, while this movie is one that focuses on Ig and Lee.

I can't help but echo Joe Hill's sentiments on Radcliffe's performance as Ig Perrish; he definitely brings out the broken characteristics of how Hill had put Ig on paper as. Having personally never typecast Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, as I never was a fan of the Harry Potter franchise to begin with, seeing him flex his muscles as an actor in Horns was refreshing and it's charming to see the strongest point of Aja's Horns being that about the actor rather than the narrative. Radcliffe's young co-stars do an equally good job, with a personal favourite being Ig's brother, Terry (Joe Anderson) being a spot-on translation from novel-to-movie, and how the character was just as 'vibrant' as I imagined he would be in the flesh.

Frankly, the practical effects and make-up in Horns are amazing, with the exploding head in the movie being up there in my list of best exploding heads. While the special effects and CGI were decent enough, Horns would've done well enough without relying too much on it, particularly several of the snakes looking as cheap as the ones on Snakes on a Plane (2006), along with Ig's final transformation without CGI looking way better than the final product, with it being at a level of ****ed up that can't possibly be reached through CGI.