Jackson Weaver
Staff Writer
An overhyped movie starring Harry Potter’s main and well-known actor Daniel Radcliffe makes the film mediocre at best.
Based on Joe Hill’s novel, “Horns” directed by Alexander Aja, revolves around Ig Parrish (Radcliffe). After the spontaneous murder of Parrish’s girlfriend Merrin, he wakes up to horns growing out of his forehead. The people in his town treat him like an outcast, excluding him from Church because they think he is the devil. Ig becomes independent and investigates the murder of his girlfriend.
Many think of Daniel Radcliffe as the young and innocent looking by from the Harry Potter series, however, Radcliffe is now grown up and plays a mature role in the film. He is not just an innocent boy anymore, and in this movie he has everything from bad facial hair to a bad attitude.
Even though Radcliffe is not the most appealing actor in this film, he does an excellent job to fit into his character. Starring as an early twenty-year-old character, he perfects a raspy voice that plays well into his couch-potato character. Radcliffe is the only reason this movie is not a complete failure.
The plot was atrocious with events that were jumbled all together in random places. The entire movie never came together in the end and the film provides a weak plot even though it is set up by Joe Hill’s novel Horns. Aja tries to be creative and add in his own material such as Ig’s pet snake that hypnotizes people into doing what he wants them to do, but it fails miserably.
In addition to the horrific plot, throughout the film Radcliffe goes through numerous occasions of flashbacks to retell moments from his past that just leaves the audience in a state of confusion. The film needs to be more straightforward, but these flashbacks of Ig’s past do not contribute to the plot and only make it complex and hard to understand. The plot starts strong, but slowly adds a sporadic narrative. The narration feels out of place and while these flashbacks are essential to the plot, they are somewhat unnecessary and do not contribute to the plot.
The film is supposed to be a horror, but the movie was never scary. The film should have been categorized as a mystery but definitely not a horror. For most of the film, Radcliffe is looking for his girlfriend’s murderer.
The director, Alexander Aja, tries to pull together a murder mystery with religious overtones and it ends up never coming together. The horns protruding from Ig’s head don’t have very much significance in the film. The director never makes an effort to explain whether these horns were symbolism of Ig as the devil.
The film, “Horns’, is set up with beautiful visuals, a jarring performance by Daniel Radcliffe and is set up by Joe Hill’s novel, however; the film is hindered by a horrific plot that leaves the audience puzzled. Even though Daniel Radcliffe is the star actor, the film is not worth seeing and is unentertaining.
“Horns” is rated R and is playing in theaters nationwide.
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