Title: Horns

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson, Kathleen Quinlan and James Remar

People are often judged by their actions and the decisions they regularly make, and can find it difficult to change people’s perceptions of them. They can also be wrongfully misjudged when society has ostracized them for an act they truly didn’t commit. But filmmaker Alexandre Aja and actor Daniel Radcliffe are enchantingly exposing modern society’s contradictions about normalcy and ideas about good versus evil in their new supernatural thriller, ‘Horns.’ The horror film, which is based on Joe Hill’s 2010 novel of the same name, smartly mixes biblical subtext with dark humor, true romance and terrifying special effects to emphasize the internal struggle between the devil and fallen angel.

‘Horns’ opens with two young lovers, Ig (Radcliffe) and Merrin (Juno Temple), declaring their undying love for each other while lying in a forest together. After the couple asserts their everlasting feelings for each other, the drama jumps ahead an unspecified amount of time, and reveals that she has been brutally sexually assaulted and murdered. He’s unable to live with the pain of not only losing his one true love, but also the fact that his community and the local media are relentlessly blaming him for her death.

Ig is so hated by his neighbors that when his small Canadian town holds a vigil in the woods where Merrin’s body was found, he’s not welcomed. While hiding in his beloved tree house that he shared with her most of their lives, Ig listens to the memorial, during which her father shuns him for harming his daughter. Unable to cope with his grief that night, Ig gets drunk and sleeps with a local bartender, Glenna Shepherd (Kelli Garner), who has lusted after him since their childhood. While he thinks all of the good has left him and he has nothing left to live for, he’s still shocked the following morning when he discovers he’s growing horns.

While Ig is initially desperate to get rid of the horns, he soon comes to embrace their power, when he realizes hey have an effect on those around him. After nonchalantly noticing his horns, people casually open up about their secret, evil desires, and they seek permission from him to commit their horrific cravings. But his luck completely disintegrates when his parents, Lydia and Derrick (Kathleen Quinlan and James Remar), admit they even believe he’s guilty of Merrin’s murder, and no longer wish to protect him. Ig’s older brother, Terry (Joe Anderson), then confesses he was also in love with his sibling’s girlfriend, and did little to help protect her before her death. Although Ig’s childhood friend, Lee Tourneau (Max Minghella), is acting as his lawyer, and is the only person who seemingly isn’t affected by his horns, the suspected criminal soon realizes that he can truly count on himself to prove his innocence.

With Aja’s extensive experience directing horror films, from the powerfully gripping ‘High Tension’ to the intriguing ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ remake, the filmmaker fascinatingly reinvented his helming techniques and approaches with Horns. Instead of mainly focusing on the gory slasher elements that enthrallingly drove the characters’ motivations in his previous movies, Aja smartly worked with the film’s scribe, Keith Bunin, to intriguingly adapt Hill’s novel about emotional and moral ramifications for the screen.

While ‘Horns’ carefully contended with such sensitive issues and consequences as people wrongfully being blamed for harming and murdering a loved one, the director and screenwriter approached the subject with a welcomed satire and absurd portrayal of human nature. Ig’s enthralling and wide range of emotions, from his initial outrage that he’s wrongfully being blamed for Merrin’s murder, to his acceptance of using his horns to punish those who have wronged him, powerfully exposes taboo issues in society. They also make viewers question their definition of normalcy and contradictions, and think how situations aren’t always what they originally appear to be.

Radcliffe was intriguingly cast as Ig in ‘Horns,’ proving that he could not only truly adapt to showcasing the complexities and conflicts of adulthood, but also emphasizing the romantic and biblical tones and dark humor Aja longed to include in the film. While Ig didn’t always easily relate to his family, as his father and Terry more easily connected over their passion of playing music, he was always viewed as a pillar of the community. Through flashbacks of his character’s relationship with Merrin before her death, the actor showcased how they had a serene, idealistic live together, but he quickly fell from grace after her brutal death. Wanting to prove his character is innocent, and that his continuing love for her is his motivation for redemption, he uses his new horns to uncover people’s darkest secrets, and expose clues that would lead him to Merrin’s true murderer.

The engaging performance Radcliffe offered as Ig, which showcased how drastically people change under the pressure, ridicule and judgment they receive from others, was also captivatingly showcased by the gripping production design from Allan Cameron. Engagingly working with Aja to capture the right look for the setting of the harrowing drama, the production designer carefully set Merrin’s death against the façade of a sublime nature in a rural lumberjack American town.

Finding the right setting for the horror film was just as important as casting the most engaging actors for the characters, as the location served as part of the history of Ig and Merrin’s relationship. The tree house and forest Cameron ultimately chose was truly captivating and alluring, as it showcased the happy times the couple had there together throughout their adolescence. When Aja filmed the couple’s happier moments together amongst the trees, the overgrown moss and leaves mirrored the promising future the two had together. But once the cast and crew began shooting Merrin’s murder, and the subsequent investigation into her death, the idyllic trees’ leaves began to lose their color and fall, emphasizing Ig’s descent.

While horror films are most often associated with gruesome stunts and visual effects, Aja has once again proved with ‘Horns’ that also incorporating social commentary and moral dilemmas is even more gratifying. The filmmaker’s intriguing collaboration with Bunin insightfully adapted Hill’s novel for the screen. With the help of Radcliffe’s emotional and equally humorous performance, the movie showcased how Ig embarked on a dangerously destructive path to not only clear his name, but also bring Merrin’s true killer to justice. Ig literally and metaphorically sacrificed himself for true love, which was showcased through the actor’s gripping performance and the film’s enthralling story and captivating setting. Horns is an equally satirized portrayal of human nature, and the truly extreme actions people will take when they’re under pressure.

Written by: Karen Benardello