A dark fantasy of questioning what is fair and right in the world, “Horns” makes you squirm in your seat. When Ig Perrish’s (Daniel Radcliffe) girlfriend Merrin (Juno Temple), is raped and murdered, Ig is the prime suspect.
In the small town of their childhood, Ig, who was already rejected by a good portion of the community, is suddenly shunned by those he once considered friends. When the law fails to defend his innocence, Ig wakes up with a killer hangover as well as a set of horns.
As he continues his day by trying to get rid of them, he discovers that everyone he comes in contact with wants to tell him their darkest secrets. Upon discovering his new paranormal abilities as well as everyone’s guilty conscious, Ig sets out to discover Merrin’s true killer.
Angels fall into the devil’s hands, friends turn to monsters, “Horns” brings your worst kept secret into the blinding light.
Growing up with Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, I have always been familiar with Radcliffe having a magical touch on the big screen. However, seeing his performance of the outcasted, moral questioning Ig Perrish made me erase Harry Potter from my mind.
Save for the fact that he kisses his beautiful English accent goodbye for his accurate grammar-insulting American accent, Radcliffe had me question my own morals throughout the film.
How do we fight for justice if we cannot tell who is pure and who is the devil? How do we search for the truth when everyone is guilty? Not a big believer in religion myself, I thought that I wouldn’t enjoy the film’s plot as much, but I couldn’t help but sit at the edge of my seat to see Ig get closer to the real story of how his girlfriend was killed.
Director Alexandre Aja managed to manipulate my emotions by keeping the significance of Ig and Merrin’s relationship in the dark. Usually we can guess the importance of the relationships of the characters in the very beginning of the film because the value of the relationship needs to be established so the characters and the audience can get to the plot of the story. Yet because the love in their relationship wasn’t expressed until the end of the film, I felt a much more powerful sense of sadness for his loss when the true killer was revealed.
Another twist that I loved about this film was that even when the killer was revealed, the climax of the film didn’t end. My adrenaline fueled mind had me guessing if there was true justice in the world until the film had sadly come to the end. I waited until the screen went black to see if there was more to the story. A truly dark and real look, “Horns” makes the audience uncomfortable with the truth.
Rating: 5/5