Ignatius Perrish (Daniel Radcliff) is a twenty-something whose childhood girlfriend has just been murdered. Everyone thinks he’s the killer—even his parents. One day, after a hard night of drinking, Ig wakes up to find devil horns have sprouted from his temples.
The horns have a peculiar effect on people. Nobody seems to think the horns are out of the ordinary, even as they feel compelled to tell Ig their darkest secrets. Ig’s doctor tells him he does oxytocin. Heather Graham’s character, a waitress, confesses she lied to the cops investigating the murder because she wants to be on TV. A bartender tells Ig he wants to burn his own establishment down for the insurance money. Ig tells him to have at it and the bartender obliges because the horns also influence others’ decisions.
This movie adaptation of Joe Hill’s novel suffers in the standard screenplay format. Whereas the novel opens with the horns, the movie puts off the horns’ appearance for just a little too long. The reason the hero grows horns in the first place is barely touched on at all. For that reason, it works a little better as a companion piece than a standalone feature.
That’s the bad. The rest is really good, at least when it’s not trying to play it safe. Sometimes it feels the filmmakers pussyfoot around the demonic aspects of the story, which kind of misses the point. Otherwise, there is plenty of snake-charming, plenty of startling confessions, lots of juicy violence. But to call this movie horror is a little misleading. “Dark urban fantasy” is a better label.
Daniel Radcliffe makes a good Ignatius Perrish. The rest of the cast is solid, too. I particularly liked Juno Temple (I usually do), Heather Graham, David Morse, and the casting of Ig’s parents: James Remar and Kathleen Quinlan. It’s a good picture, just a little rough in spots.
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