DEATH OF A UNICORN
*CUT TO THE CHASE*NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy
The film opens as Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his teenage daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) are taking a trip to the estate of Elliot’s boss, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) and his family. Elliot is suffering from allergies while Ridley is jaded and not entirely interested in the trip.
On the road, Elliot accidentally hits a baby unicorn with his car. After they pull over, Ridley goes to the unicorn as its horn starts glowing. She touches the horn and appears to be in some kind of cosmic realm where she sees unbelievable things…and then Elliot shows up and starts to bludgeon the creature with a tire iron to put it out of its misery.
Elliot and Ridley arrive at the Leopold estate, where they meet Odell, who is sick and close to death, along with his wife Belinda (Tea Leoni) and their son Shepard (Will Poulter). Elliot is trying to close a deal with Odell, while Ridley is mortified by them hitting the unicorn. Their car starts rocking aggressively, and everyone in the house notices. They go outside and see the unicorn still alive and breaking through the van until the Leopolds’ assistant Shaw (Jessica Hynes) blows its brains out.
The group observes the unicorn and notes that the first time it got hit, Elliot and Ridley got its blood on them. Ridley’s acne was gone, and so was Elliot’s allergies. The Leopolds use their team of scientists, led by Dr. Song (Steve Park) and Dr. Bhatia (Sunita Mani), to study the unicorn and extract blood and samples of its horn for research and development towards a cure for diseases like cancer.
While Elliot works closely with Odell, Ridley is displeased with the work that they are doing in exploiting the creature. Odell takes a sample from the horn and is rapidly cured of his disease. Meanwhile, Shepard snorts some of the horn like cocaine and starts to feel a connection to the unicorn, similar to how Ridley has felt connected to the dead unicorn since she touched the horn. Odell has the unicorn’s body brought to the lab for further testing, and he berates Dr. Song when he says he doesn’t think they can mass produce similar treatments for distribution so quickly. Up in the sky, an aurora borealis appears with a glowing light coming towards the estate.
Elliot joins the scientists at their facility to continue studying the creature. Soon, everyone is stunned when a large black unicorn shows up and rams its horn through Dr. Song’s body, leaving a huge gaping hole where his guts spill out. Everybody runs, but another unlucky guard gets his head stomped to paste. Elliot gets Ridley away to safety when the black unicorn starts trying to attack. Ridley goes to hide, and the black unicorn finds her, but it starts to make a pained sound as its horn glows. Ridley tries to touch the horn, but it gets scared away by Shaw and her gunmen arriving to shoot at it. They manage to injure it, but it escapes into the woods.
The group reconvenes at the Leopold estate. Odell prepares to send Shaw and the team into the woods to hunt the black unicorn down, while Shepard takes a vial of the horn powder and orders Dr. Bhatia to saw the horn off the dead unicorn. She does, and it severs Ridley’s connection to the creature. She quickly learns through research of her own that the unicorns can heal themselves, and the one that they have been keeping is not dead. Realizing that Elliot and the others are heading into a trap, Ridley tries to text him to warn him, but the black unicorn shows up with its mate, and they proceed to kill the gunmen and drag Shaw into the woods to an unseen fate. When they run back to the estate, Odell tries to approach the male unicorn, thinking it will let him touch the horn. He is very quickly proven wrong when the unicorn jams the horn from under Odell’s chin through the top of his head.
The group scrambles to think of a plan. The family’s head of security Griff (Anthony Carrigan) leaves to get help. Ridley suggests that, since the two black unicorns are obviously the parents of the unicorn they killed, they must want their baby back. They have Dr. Bhatia bring the unicorn’s body out, but since it is missing the horn, the parents rip Dr. Bhatia in two. The parent unicorns start to break into the house, where they impale Belinda through the shoulder. Shepard has an opportunity to put Belinda out of her misery by hitting a gas tank with a flaming arrow, but he has a change of heart and lets the unicorn rip out Belinda’s guts.
Elliot has a change of heart after listening to Ridley and tries to take the horn to give back to the parents while giving her an opportunity to escape. As the morning comes, Ridley tries to flee but is caught by Shepard. Since he has had visions too, he knows that the unicorns are peaceful towards humans that they perceive as being pure-hearted, so he wants to use her as bait to get them. Elliot comes out and stabs Shepard in the gut with the horn, but he stabs Elliot in return. The mama unicorn then bucks Shepard in the head, sending his corpse flying several feet. Ridley goes to her dying father and weeps, but the two unicorns go to Elliot and their baby, and they use their powers to revive both of them and return the horn to the baby’s head. Elliot also experiences similar visions to what Ridley saw. The parent unicorns turn white like the baby before they run home, and Elliot and Ridley embrace. Unfortunately, Griff returns with a cop, who sees the dead bodies and assumes Elliot and Ridley did it.
The two are taken away to be questioned. Elliot tells Ridley what he saw, and they prepare to face whatever comes ahead together. They then see the unicorns running alongside the cars. Elliot braces Ridley for what’s about to happen, just as the unicorns ram into the cop cars.
Elliot Kintner and his teenage daughter Ridley are taking a trip to the home of Elliot's boss, Odell Leopold. On the way, they accidentally hit a baby unicorn and seemingly kill it. They bring the unicorn's body back to the Leopold estate, where they discover that its blood is capable of healing ailments, such as Elliot's allergies and Ridley's acne. It is later used to heal Odell's disease, and he has his team of scientists work to mass produce a concoction that they can sell.
The baby unicorn's parents soon arrive and start killing off the people on the estate, such as the head scientist and a guard, plus the Leopolds' assistant and a team of gunmen. Ridley thinks that returning the baby will keep them peaceful, but since Odell's son Shepard had the horn sawed off, they kill Dr. Bhatia, who did the cutting. They also kill Odell when he tries to touch the dad unicorn's horn. His wife Belinda also gets killed when they break into the house.
Elliot, who had been working with Odell out of the need to provide for himself and Ridley, has a change of heart and tries to help Ridley escape while returning the horn. Shepard tries to stop them, since he has seen visions after ingesting the horn (Ridley also saw visions after touching the horn) and wants to use her as bait to lure the unicorns there and exploit them further. Elliot stabs Shepard with the horn, but he gets stabbed in return, and the mom unicorn bucks Shepard in the head, killing him. Elliot dies, but the older unicorns use their powers to revive him and the baby, whose horn is reattached.
A cop arrives and assumes Elliot and Ridley killed everyone. As they are taken away for questioning, the unicorns show up to break them out.