Horns

So I saw Horns, and it was basically the first third of Gone Girl + Liar, Liar with a little Stand By Me mixed in. It starts Daniel Radcliffe (who most people probably know as Harry Potter) as a slacker guy who’s girlfriend (Juno Temple)  is found raped and murdered and he’s the prime suspect. So far so normal (relatively), but then he wakes up one morning to find horns growing out of his forehead! Weirdly no one really notices the horns, and he soon realizes that they actually give him special powers. People now always tell him the truth, and often either do what he says or ask him permission to do something terrible. My favorite example was when he tells a group of local news teams that they have to fight each other and he’ll give an interview to the winners, which immediately leads to a full-on Anchorman style brawl. Anyhow, as time goes on his horns grow larger and larger and he slowly unravels the mystery of who killed his girlfriend. There are also extended flashbacks to when the characters were kids, showing how their relationships developed and stuff.

The thing about this movie is that it’s trying really hard to be edgy. While some of the reactions to the horns are funny or touching (at one point Radcliffe goes home and has a series of conversations with his family that are pretty gut-wrenching) but for the most part it’s pretty basic like “Oh man these cops turned out to be gay!” or “Woo! That dude pulled his junk out!” I wish they had done more with it. Also there are extended sequences that just seem to be about showing the dude who played Harry Potter doing drugs and having sex just for its own sake, which personally wasn't that titillating to me, but your mileage may vary.

There are some funny and interesting parts of this movie, but I wouldn't recommend rushing out to find it. It does have an important lesson to teach about not turning your back on crazy murderers though. Make sure they’re tied up and stuff before you start thinking you've won, honestly!