Daniel Radcliffe doesn’t need Horns, but boy does Horns need Daniel Radcliffe. This is the Boy Who Lived after all, a young guy with so much pop cultural cachet that the idea of performing Equus seemed beneath him. Yet, even during his stint as the world’s most famous wizard, Radcliffe made moves to prove himself a real thespian and not just a child star doomed to fade away once his franchising bread and butter molded. He’s legit. He’s bona fide. He’s also, apparently, a fan of high concept horror, evidenced by his participation in films like The Woman in Black, next year’s adaptation of Frankenstein, and now the latest unsettling provocation from Alexandre Aja.
Fortunately for Radcliffe’s chops, Horns is the sort of horror outing that very much rides on the quality of its lead. We invest in Radcliffe, an actor who can cut a tragic figure in his sleep, from the first frame: we’re supposed to actually care about the characters here instead of viewing them as livestock dopily milling about the knacker’s yard. Stunt casting or not, Radcliffe singlehandedly elevates the entire goddamned picture, so the only question we’re left with is: What kind of film would this be without him?
Radcliffe plays Ignatius “Ig” Perrish, the top suspect in the vicious murder of his girlfriend, Merrin (Juno Temple). Ig predictably wants to clear his name amid the social furor surrounding her death, because even though his family has all the currency needed to keep him out of the courtroom and free from jail, pretty much everyone in his generic, sleepy hometown thinks he’s guilty. But then Ig wakes up and finds that he’s inexplicably sprouted a truly gnarly pair of horns on his noggin, and suddenly everybody around him—friend and stranger alike—just can’t help but confess to him (and sometimes act out) their basest desires. How best to use his newfound powers of persuasion? To play a game of whodunit, and maybe win some justice for the love of his life.
What follows is a welcome change of pace for Aja, long settled into his role as a purveyor of the extreme since debuting with High Tension in 2003. In his decade-spanning career, Aja has offended our delicate sensibilities with nasty little ditties ranging from The Hills Have Eyes and the screenplay for the awfully disturbing Maniac remake, to, most recently, Piranha 3D, a film that remains the definition of “guilty pleasure”. But Horns is a curveball: it shares little in common with his past efforts save for the fact that it’s based on another’s work, in this case Joe Hill, one of Stephen King’s two talented writer sons.